


flexion and extension

by thekookster



Series: cross-sectional anatomy [1]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 2017-2018 NHL Season, Anal Sex, Barebacking, Being Horny For Sidney Crosby’s Filthy Mustache, Best Friends Doing Dumb Shit, Crack Treated Seriously, Drunk Texting, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Fluff and Angst, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Horniness, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Nipple Play, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Praise Kink, Sidney Crosby’s Verbal Humiliation Kink, Slow Burn, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:21:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26199250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekookster/pseuds/thekookster
Summary: In which Nate struggles with drunk texting, the Wingman Code, a reluctant attraction to awful mustaches, Canadian real estate, best friends that make terrible life choices, the definitive ranking of weird ice cream flavors, tailor-made shirts, the La Croix of weed smells, and being in love with Sidney Crosby.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Sidney Crosby/Nathan MacKinnon, Tyson Barrie & Nathan MacKinnon, Tyson Barrie/Erik Johnson
Series: cross-sectional anatomy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1903576
Comments: 17
Kudos: 155





	flexion and extension

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, I just wanted to write dumb jock shenanigans, and then my brain was like “but what if you made it tender” and then this came out. Huge shoutout to sternenfresser for reading the penultimate version and giving me feedback despite have no interest in or prior knowledge of hockey, you‘re a gem. This has been two years in the making and takes place partway through the 17/18 season. In case anyone but me is interested, I made a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5OeE84AX6Bkwyyt4d46Wtk?si=05uHm6f1R56UJuUhEVEPpQ) on Spotify for this fic, there’s also a tumblr post with the [track listing](https://crosbyism.tumblr.com/post/627906759224426496/side-a-sid).

When Nate sees who his vacated seat is currently being occupied by, he has, not for the first time this week, the sudden urge to turn right back around and just leave the bar. His earlier subdued mood aside, the night was going well up until now: the team is out, having fun after nearing the end of their first home game stretch this season and Nate is just in the process of walking back up to their table, carrying his beer and Tyson’s cocktail over. In about ninety percent of any given situation, this would not be a Bad Situation; unfortunately, however, this is not Tyson’s first cocktail that Nate is carrying, much less his first drink, and the person sitting all cosied up to Tyson in Nate’s place is Gabe. All of which is why when Nate comes up to the table, Tyson doesn’t even seem to register him as a human being. Nate has essentially been demoted to a drink dispenser in the face of the big blond Swedish menace that’s currently commanding all of his best friend’s attention.

At this point Nate resigns himself to having the dubious honour of being Tyson’s chaperone for the rest of the night and squeezes himself into the booth on the other side of Tyson.

“Hey buddy,” he says, lazily throwing an arm around his shoulder, “what are you two up to over here?”

“Gabe’s forehead is too big,” Tyson informs him very earnestly and very drunkenly, “but his beard is beautiful, so it’s okay.”

Nate has a visceral urge to stab himself for a half second before taking a very deep breath. He was only gone for ten minutes, damn it.

Gabe, of course, laughs his loud throaty laugh, because he turns into an indiscriminate slut after two drinks and his girlfriend isn’t there to bear the brunt of the attention. Nate thinks, not for the first time in his friendship with Tyson, that it’s really very unfair that he has to abandon any and all of tonight’s possible future beers for the sake of being a good bro. If anything, he deserves those beers as a reward.

“Nah, his beard just looks like a mess. Twigs and shit, bud, you should check for bugs, eh,” Nate drawls. It’s not his best, and obviously a blatant lie; Gabe’s beard is objectively speaking a very nice beard. However, Nate has a textbook code orange on his hands, as decreed by the Wingman Code, which calls for diffusing the weird horny situation that these drunk morons have going on, making Tyson finish his last drink, and finally, getting him home.

“Fucking bug infestation!” Tyson guffaws, apparently having reached the point in the evening where he finds even lame chirps hilarious.

“By the way,” Nate says to Gabe, “I think I heard Mikko talking shit about Sweden back there, you should probably set the rookie straight.” 

Mikko isn’t even technically a rookie anymore, but that doesn’t seem to matter.

“Fucking… no. That’s wrong, I gotta,” Gabe mutters, drunk enough to be easily distracted by Nate’s blatant diversion, and wriggles out of the booth to go and restore the honor of his country. Tyson pouts up at Nate, who is obviously the bad guy here. Nate rolls his eyes.

Brutes will thank him for it in the morning.

“Rude, dun’ have to scare him away just cause you’re grumpy,” Tyson mumbles.

“I’m not grumpy,” Nate argues, which is mostly true. Nate’s never really properly grumpy, his general temperament is too evenly keeled for that. It’s mostly either full rage or his neutral default, although he’s working on the full rage part of that equation.

“Yeah you are. About being away from _Siiiiiidney_ ,” Tyson whines. Which— there’s not much Nate can argue with there. Although he’s not so much grumpy as moping, not that he’ll admit that to Tyson.

They’re into the latter half of November again, which is always around the time that Sid texts less regularly. Which— there’s nothing wrong with that, they both have to concentrate on their separate seasons with separate franchises, and it’s perfectly sensible to be more focused on the season heating up again. At least that’s what Nate tells himself every year, not that it ever really works for his mood.

At least this year they’re doing better. Their start up till Dutchy got traded was exhausting, but there’s no denying that they’re better off without him, and their ongoing win streak has everyone looking a little lighter round the eyes compared to last season. Although that’s hard to top, last season was _abysmal_.

At this point, Nate mentally checks himself before he wrecks himself, because his therapist is actually worth his salt and Nate’s been working on not spiralling as much about his professional performance.

So he says, “alright, that’s enough outta you,” to Tyson instead of following that depressing mental yellow brick road down any further. “Code orange, let’s get you out of here.”

Tyson whines about it because he’s high maintenance like that, but he still gets up and lets Nate herd him to the car because really, he knows there’s no arguing with the Wingman Code when drunk.

* * *

The Wingman Code, as developed by Nate and Tyson on a fateful night in November 2013 and messily recorded on a bar napkin that they tragically spilled some Jaeger on halfway through writing, looks like this:

_Code Blue: a sad :( drunk needs hapiness and rainbows and shit_

**Code Green: after puke you need a shot** ~~ **and a glass of water**~~ _nother shot_

 _Code Yellow: beer makes you pee_ **that’s just a fact Tys**

_Code Orange: drunnk person being stupid, good bros evacuate_

_Code_ ~~ _Sex_~~ **Red: good wingmen help their** **bros get laid** _fuck yeah_

Mostly, it originated as a kind of throwaway drunk idea, but Nate ended up actually remembering the codes, and since then they’ve proven to be pretty useful. Tyson sometimes still accidentally invokes code sex instead of code red, but it’s whatever. Nate once apparently called a code yellow for Tyson, who subsequently spent a half hour insisting that neither of them had beer at increasingly high decibel levels before realizing Nate actually meant a code orange and declaring them both orange and immediately evacuating both of them for the first and only time in their friendship. So really, it’s a useful buddy system for both of them, especially with the recent development of Tyson attempting to drool over Gabe every time he’s drunk. Makes Nate’s job a lot easier.

And that’s not— Nate isn’t being a judgemental douchebag about it. Nate would like to have it on the record that he’s actually a great and supportive friend, alright? He’s the _best_. He listens, and he’s got a solid shoulder for crying or complaining on, and he makes time for his friends. Frankly, he should get a medal. Jo would totally attest to these things after all these years, and he wouldn’t even be saying it out of, like, former hookup obligations or any bullshit like that. Nate is just a really good bro.  
  
He’s just not sure how much longer he can deal with Tyson obsessing like this.

* * *

It started innocently. Mostly. As innocently as these things can start, at least. After multiple years of casual friendship, Tyson just started hanging out more with Gabe, which is obviously a good thing, for team bonding reasons or whatever. And at first it was all hockey based — Tyson would compliment Gabe’s shot, or his skating abilities, and that was all fine! It was fine, and appropriate, and the type of stuff that was really good, even, because it meant Tyson was getting along with Gabe, which is important for team chemistry and stuff.  
But then he started complimenting Gabe’s face.  
  
“I don’t get it, man!” Nate is complaining loudly while rummaging through his fridge. He’s on the phone with Sid, who is a bastion of patience and reasonable behaviour because he also recognises Nate’s struggle as the best bro in the world, bless him. “He didn’t even start out with chirping or anything. I can’t even talk to my best friend about anything else, last season he just went straight to, ‘Oh my god, Nate, Gabe is so gorgeous, Nate, he’s so hot, Nate, what if my face melts from his hotness, Nate’! I mean, sure, Landy’s a man-rocket, factually speaking, but he needs to chill out about it, they’ve been friends for _years_ , for fuck’s sake.”  
Nate’s Tyson impression is really not very good, he goes way too high-pitched and his voice cracks at the end there, but Sid apparently finds his struggle hilarious because the answer Nate gets is a short laugh sounding through his kitchen from where his phone is lying on the counter.

“Come on, it’s pretty funny,” Sid says when Nate grunts grumpily, “he’ll get it together soon enough anyway, right? Make a move, strike out, move on?”

“Are you kidding? The dude’s blind, and the whole thing is worse than those soaps my mom likes. He’s just going to keep pining till the end of forever. Or ‘til Gabe puts him out of his misery, which is going to be never. It’s hopeless, I’m going to need to whack them both over the head or something.”

“Those soaps your _mom_ likes, eh,” Sid says, and Nate can hear him grinning, the asshole.

“Shut up, Croz,” Nate says, grateful that Sid can’t see him blushing to his roots right now. He takes some chicken out of the fridge, opens up the package with his kitchen scissors, and throws it in a pan, turning up the heat and willing himself to stop impersonating a tomato.

“No. I don’t know what you’re talking about. There better not be an— _insinuation_ there, Sidney. Because I am shocked and offended, and you should be ashamed of offending your most generous and giving friend this way.”

“But I wasn’t talking about Duper,” Sidney shoots back, giggling in his ridiculous honking way, and Nate makes an offended noise, hiding his delight abysmally.

“ _Duper?_ That is— rude. And outrageous. You are disinvited from my house forever and ever, and you will never get to eat my delicious cooking again,” Nate rebukes. Technically, Sid’s always the one cooking anyway; Nate is good at some things, but despite his recent efforts to rectify that, cooking is still really not one of them— not that he’ll admit that right now.

The chicken, apparently set on calling out his blatant lies, chooses that exact moment to betray him and attempts to start burning and sticking to the pan, spurring Nate to hastily pour some more oil in the pan and try to scrape the chicken off the sides. Naturally, he immediately has to throw his hands up to protect himself from the hot oil spitting out of the pan at him, and he holds up the lid of the pan as a shield while he frantically stabs the controls on the stove until they innocently proclaim that the chicken is on minimum heat. 

Sid of course chooses this moment to comment, fittingly: “ _Your_ cooking? That’s news to me, bud, since I’m the one always cooking for you. Nice job pretending that you’re not gonna be over all the time this summer either way.”

“Lies,” Nate throws back, mostly because he doesn’t want to admit that Sid’s right. “All lies, I have never eaten your terrible excuse for cooking and I’m definitely not going to invite myself over for dinner when we’re up in Pittsburgh in two weeks for the game. Because your cooking is obviously garbage.”

“So I _won’t_ see you after the afternoon game for dinner at my place and you _won’t_ be bringing a nice bottle of wine from that place in Denver that I like?” Sid teases, playing along.

“Nope. Not at all. I’ll bring you a garbage wine from _Boston_ , just to spite you.” Nate briefly wonders if Boston even has bad wines, but it doesn’t really matter: he gets to hear Sid giggle again, because they both know he’s just bullshitting, at this point. Nate has two crates of Sid’s favourite casual dinner red wine sitting around in his basement, just waiting to be gifted to Sid. Sid doesn’t know that part, and Nate’s never going to tell him.

“O-kay,” Sid says, reverting for just a second to a familiar accent that makes Nate’s heart thump painfully at the sudden sound of _home_. “Don’t bail on me, Nate,” Sid murmurs in his low, happy voice, audibly smiling, “it’s a date.”

“Yeah,” Nate replies, trying to ignore his inconvenient heart palpitations, “yeah, I’ll see you next week.”  
  
Sid hangs up, leaving Nate to frown at his now decidedly burnt chicken, traitor that it is. “Thanks,” Nate mumbles sarcastically, mostly to the chicken— and only a little bit to his racing heart.

* * *

The factual truth of the matter is: Nate happened to grow up when Sid was a rising star. He had a signed poster of Sidney Crosby in his childhood bedroom and multiple unsigned ones. He even had a Pens calendar on his wall one year that he constantly kept open to the month of August. So yeah, he jerked off to Sidney “the Next One” Crosby as a kid; there’s really very few hockey-interested Nova Scotian kids who _didn’t,_ at that time. Sidney Crosby was his big teen crush; equal parts adolescent sex fantasy and role model, like all teen crushes. It goes almost without saying that Nate was beyond embarrassing the first time they met; stuttering and making a fool of himself. Who doesn’t act like a moron when they meet their idol?

But over time, Nate got to know _Sid_ — his fannish awe for Sid’s stick handling morphed into the frustrated ambition of a competitor working to surpass him; and any listening and nodding in dumb agreement with his idol turned into listening and arguing with his peer. What Nate is saying here is: he got over his kid crush on Sidney-Crosby-the-celebrity ages ago. Probably around the first time he had to share a dressing room with him and the truly awful zombie jock. There’s really not a lot of adolescent crushing that can survive that much accumulated ball sweat. 

The point is that Sid laughs like a goose. Which should probably annoy Nate, because actual Canadian geese are vicious motherfuckers straight from hell, but every time Nate hears that ridiculous laugh he just can’t help but feel all warm and fond in his chest. And really, that’s the whole issue right there, isn’t it?

In the four years since he first met Sid, Nate just may have developed feelings for actual real-life Sid the dork instead. He likes to think he’s got no illusions about it: it turns out that Nate’s the kind of moron who develops serious feelings for his friend, not the kind to be in _denial_ about it.

It’s just that Sid is a sweet gigantic nerd, especially about hockey and golf; he’s legitimately terrible at chirping friends because he breaks out in laughter halfway through the chirp; his levels of superstition are, like, goalie-crazy; he’s the weirdest control freak about the oddest things; he still lets his sister call him Squid, of all things; and his competitive streak competes with _other competitive streaks_ over the most ridiculous lengths to go to for petty competition— which, Nate would know, he’s the only person on the planet who gets more pissy than Sid about petty competition, although he’s working on those issues, thank you very much. 

All in all, Nate’s basically ass over ears for him. The only issue is this: they’ve become really good friends. Buddies, pals, peers, comrades, summer workout partners; chums, even, if you want to get weird and French Canadian about it. Just not bros; they’re not American frat boys, after all, and although frat boys and hockey players have a lot in common, that’s one term Nate can’t really picture Sid ever saying, and for Nate it’s a little too awkward to get his mouth around it considering the aforementioned pathetic feelings he’s wallowing in. Point being: they’re friends, and Nate knows how little of those Sid has in his life— not that Nate’s general intensity and awkward introversion has made him fare any better in that department. So, since it’s unfair to their friendship to have any feelings for Sid, it means there’s only one option here: get over it and move on so he can keep being a good friend to Sid.

So it’s not a big deal: Nate’s working on it, and it’s not like Sid will ever find out, so it doesn’t matter. Rome wasn’t built in a day and all that. Nate will get over it. It’s fine; it’s going to be _just fine_ and Nate will survive.

* * *

“I’m going to die,” Tyson moans.

Loudly. Right in Nate’s ear. His very, very hungover ear.  
  
“Oh m’god,” groans Nate, “how’re you so _loud_.”

“I’m going to die from literal embarrassment, Nathan, help me.”  
  
“No help,” Nate grumbles, “and no sympathy, let me die in peace,” and then turns over only to fall promptly onto the floor. There is some very undignified hungover swearing that follows, mostly directed at Tyson, who is not helping at all and trying to suppress his snickering.

“What the _fuck_ ,” says Nate, trying to figure out why he just fell off his couch, of all places.

“Please don’t die, I need you to kill me first,” says Tyson, and it takes a second for Nate to realise that Tyson is not actually hungover, and is instead just slumped in a rumpled heap in Nate’s armchair. With takeaway coffee. That he got for himself instead of Nate, who is clearly the victim in this situation. And Tyson doesn’t even have the decency to be hungover, the selfish asshole.

“Where the fuck is my coffee,” Nate grumbles, mostly to accuse Tyson of being a douchebag, at which point Tyson sighs a little melodramatically and gestures vaguely to somewhere behind Nate.

“You don’t have to look at me like that, it’s on the kitchen counter,” he mumbles.

As soon Nate has more or less shuffled over to the kitchen to splash some water on his face and chug down the coffee, Tyson does of course not give him a momentary reprieve to try to recollect what the fuck happened last night, instead launching into his own issues.

“So, I kind of did a dumb thing last night,” Tyson admits sheepishly, and doesn’t even have the decency to give Nate a chance to vaguely prepare himself for this conversation before he says, out of fucking nowhere, “I might have... had sex with EJ?”

Nate, who is still standing next to his kitchen counter, needs a full 10 seconds of squinting at Tyson’s pink face to try to process that sentence. He then stares at his kitchen cabinets in despair, because at least they don’t do this kind of shit to him. Or _these ones_ don’t; the ones in the Nova Scotia house are probably going to decide they don’t want to be installed and run away, with the way that’s been going. But these cabinets here in Denver can’t be disappointing, they’re the dogs of furniture. Or maybe the not-having-pets of furniture, since generally speaking, cabinets don’t actively excite him the way dogs do. Although that entire concept of being pet-less is maybe a little disappointing, so maybe cabinets are a disappointing concept after all. He looks back up to Tyson, remembers what the fuck he just heard, then needs another 10 full seconds to gather the energy to deal with this fuckery at this early hour, because _what the fuck, Tyson_.

“What the fuck, Tyson,” Nate says succinctly.

“Okay, look, it was just a blowjob! And I didn’t mean to! I mean, obviously I wanted to, and it seemed like a good idea at the time, but EJ hasn’t texted or said anything since, and I just, what do I do, what if he hates me or something, what if he kicks me off the team?”  
Nate takes a second to wonder at how he, the younger of the two, has technically become the mom friend. Then Tyson’s words catch up with his brain, and he slowly feels an ice cold panic spread through his chest. Tyson, oblivious, rattles on.

“I mean, he can’t do that, can he? Oh my god, what if he can, what if they trade me to Arizona, I don’t want to go to Arizona, Nate!”

“Shut up for a second,” Nate says slowly, heart pounding loudly in his ears, “Brutes, what did you just say?”

“Did you even listen to me? I said I had sex with Erik, our _teammate_ , Jesus, how often do you have to shame me—,“  
  
“No, after that.”

“He didn’t text me back?” Tyson asks, visibly confused, “I’m worried that I might have to leave the team, like, dude, this is important shit.”

“Fuck.” Nate says, dropping the coffee cup on the counter, where it thankfully has mercy on Nate and doesn’t spill over, and proceeds to frantically rummage through his jean pockets, “Fuck, shit, _god_ _fucking_ — please tell me — _phone_ , where the fuck is my phone?”

“It’s right here on the couch, what the hell’s going on, dude?”

Nate dives for the couch in the most undignified possible way, scrambling for his phone and praying to the heavens that he really didn’t do what he thinks he did. His lock screen lights up in his hand and his heart almost stops when he sees a notification for a new message from Sid.

Fuck. Fuck.

There is a moment where Nate seriously contemplates cutting his losses, faking his own death, vanishing into the Canadian wilderness and becoming a lumberjack hermit who doesn’t talk to anyone ever. His parents would understand, he thinks, and so would Tyson. Tyson, who Nate can distantly hear saying, “Man, you’re really pale, are you okay? Your hands are shaking.”  
Nate ignores him and instead unlocks his phone with numb fingers. And then he sees it, in its full glory: Nate’s horrific abomination of a text that he definitely didn’t imagine, and underneath it, Sid’s reply from almost midnight, when he probably checked his phone after the Penguins’ game last night.

Nate must make some sort of noise, because Tyson actually comes over and plucks the phone from Nate’s hands so he can inspect the damage himself.

“‘Think you got the wrong person, bud,’” Tyson reads aloud, “Wrong person for what? What did you—,” and then Tyson scrolls up and makes a small _oh_ sound.

“‘Wanna blow you like a leaf blower, baby, you were so gorgeous tonight’?” Tyson asks incredulously, eyebrows shooting to his hairline as he looks up at Nate, “Dude, how drunk were you, you _know_ that’s not how blow jobs work. And did you really drunk sext Sidney Crosby?”  
Nate moans in despair, head in his hands, because yes, he very much did do that. Because after the Avs’ afternoon game yesterday, he came home, made himself an actual nice dinner that he didn’t burn, and then got wine drunk while watching the Pens’ evening game. During which Sid, being Sid, shot a beautiful wrister into the goal, which got Nate so hot he may have texted Sid.

“Dude, he obviously thinks you meant to text someone else, so no harm no foul I guess. Although I can’t believe you called him baby.”  
  
“That’s not the point,” Nate moans, “How the fuck am I gonna have dinner with him next week if I can’t even look at him?”  
  
“I don’t know man, how am I gonna even stay on the team if my alternate captain is gonna fire me for, like, sexual harassment?”

“He can’t fire you, Brutes,” Nate replies automatically, then grimaces up at Tyson and concedes that point, because even if EJ definitely can’t actually fire Tyson, there is definitely a Situation here and the exact mechanics aren’t the point. There is some emotional spiralling happening, and that’s when Nate decides they both definitely need more ice cream if they’re going to be using their last free day before the road trip feeling sorry for themselves.

“Okay, that’s it. This is a code blue,” Nate declares, standing up, “I’m going to shower, and then we’re going out to buy as much ice cream as we can possibly find. We’re gonna hang out and have a bro day.”

“Dude, I don’t know if you noticed, but we’re not drunk,” Tyson says slowly, “you can’t really call a code blue. That’s not how, like, rules work.”

“Of course I can,” Nate says, slowly grinning at Tyson, “If we’re sober, that just means that we can cheer ourselves up with ice cream _and_ alcohol.”

Tyson pointedly rolls his eyes at Nate, then sighs. “Okay, fine. We’ll make a food run. I’ll wait here. But don’t take too long!” Tyson yells after Nate, who’s already taking the stairs two at a time.

* * *

Their bro day ends up with both of them quite pathetically drunk and flopped haphazardly over the couch, gorging themselves on three different kinds of ice cream.  
“So like, his dick is so beautiful, dude,” Tyson is lamenting around his spoonful of Chunky Monkey. “I basically, like, lowered my dick expectations, my dickspectations, basically—”

“Dickspecations” Nate gasps, giggling, because _dickspectations_.

“—And it didn’t even matter!” Tyson continues, unperturbed, “stop laughing Nathan, his dick has ruined, like, all other dicks! It’s like the— that woman, what’s her face.”

“Woman?” Nate questions, because that’s probably the least gay thing Tyson’s ever said.

“Don’t be a jackass, Nathan, the painting. The famous one.”

“Ah,” Nate nods sagely, because this makes more sense. “Why would I know that?”

“Mona Lisa!” Tyson exclaims, snapping his fingers at his epiphany, “It’s perfect, it’s like the Mona Lisa of penises! Except for not, because the Mona Lisa is apparently really boring up close, but, like, his dick is just too beautiful!”

“That sounds unfortunate,” Nate commiserates, but only does a mediocre job of keeping a straight face, because he’s still a little hung up on _dickspecations_ and also, he’s, like, really concentrating on how good this ice cream is. Because seriously, it’s really good, has Tyson tried this yet?

“Yes, Nathan, of course I—“ Tyson laments, and then squints at his tub consideringly. “Actually, maybe not, just, how about I,“ and then he snatches the tub really very rudely from Nate, who is left to try the tub still standing on the living room table.

“I don’t even know how it happened, anyway,” Tyson continues, “we were just talking on his couch and next thing I know I’m sucking his dick.”

“Why?” Nate manages to articulate around his spoonful of Chocolate Fudge Brownie, very thoughtfully. He’s being so thoughtful, his therapist would be so proud of him.

“I don’t know!”

Because Nate is a good friend, he manages to keep the spoon out of his mouth for the next question. “Is this like a misplaced Gabe thing, with the crush? Did you just need to blow the next blond on the team?”

“You’re the next blond on the team, so no, Dogg,” Tys rolls his eyes like Nate’s the unreasonable one here. Nate can’t actually see it with both of them lying perpendicular on the couch like this, but he _knows_. The type of silence is very telling. 

“I don’t think so? Turns out EJ is really hot, I guess? It’s just all so _ugh_ ,” Tyson sighs, “Why did he have to be so funny and have his dick, it’s not fair.”

“I totally hear you,” Nate says loyally, although visibly missing teeth don’t really do it for Nate, personally. Sid’s teeth are perfect. 

Probably owing to the wine, they don’t really end up making much progress on the EJ topic, instead getting derailed into a discussion of ranking ice cream flavours, but all in all, it’s ultimately a good day. Especially because after Nate finally screws up his courage and texts Sid back, playing the whole thing off as having texted the wrong person, Sid replies with “no problem, maybe leave out the leaf blower when you text him next time”. So Nate is basically never going to get over the humiliation of this day, but on the bright side he hasn’t ruined his relationship with Sid by confessing to his pathetic feelings in a fit of panicked honesty. At this point, Nate will take it.

* * *

The next morning, Tyson is the last one to arrive at the airport. He had to leave Nate’s place to go pack the rest of his stuff and rush over to the airport, so he lost a little bit of time, while Nate just threw together his stuff and grabbed two extra suits and drove straight over. Initially, Nate is a little worried that he’ll have to run interference, since EJ is already there, talking to Gabe while they wait, but EJ is initially very composed when Tyson shows up. Almost ignoring him, even.

Tyson, on the other hand, looks exactly like what he did this morning: woke up groggily on Nate’s couch, rushed through putting on his shoes and coat, rushed home, and then came straight here. Which is to say: he looks pretty disheveled. He’s also pretty jittery, probably about having to see EJ again, although he’s hiding that remarkably well considering how transparent he usually is, emotionally speaking. Probably to avoid the giant blond elephant in the room, Tyson comes right up to Nate, grins at him conspiratorially and goes, “Hey Nate Dogg, you rushed over here too, huh?”

Which, rude, because Nate looks way more put-together than Tyson currently does, but Nate figures Tyson deserves a pass — especially because Nate will absolutely get him back later. So Nate gives him a companionable buddy punch in the shoulder, which is when he has a weird out-of-body moment and abruptly realizes two things.

One: EJ is absolutely glaring at Nate over Tyson’s shoulder, looking somewhere between achingly devastated and passionately furious.

And two: this is probably because, to any outsider, it totally looks like Nate and Tyson spent the night together in a decidedly non-buddy-buddy way. Really, it kind of looks like Nate banged the living daylights out of Tyson, who then had to rush home and gather his road trip supplies to rush straight here. Which is kind of what happened, except for the part where there was decidedly no banging and mostly just sad ice-cream-fueled discussions about EJ’s dick. And his face. And that Nate needs to up his sexting game. Because really, there’s nothing sexy about a leaf blower. 

“Guess we can get going now then,” Gabe says cheerily, completely oblivious to the six-foot-four wall of ice standing next to him and shit. Nate can see it on EJ’s face, this is bad. 

Unfortunately, circumstances being what they are, Nate can’t exactly go up to EJ right now and clarify anything, so he just files up into the plane and into his aisle seat next to Tyson.

The plane ride itself is as icy as expected. Nate has a moment of mortifying second-hand embarrassment when Tyson and EJ accidentally bump into each other on the way to the bathroom, where Erik essentially tries to personify an icicle and Tys is so busy not looking at his teammate-slash-one-night-stand that he completely misses the complicated hurt that twists across EJ’s face.

After the mortification of having to witness that, Nate decides to try to close his eyes and sleep. It’s a long flight, after all.

* * *

They get to the rink for warm-ups and between the Erikcicle and Nate being caught up in pre-game prep, he doesn’t really have time to worry about seeing Sid until he’s on the ice and Sid is there.

As is, in fact, Sid’s mustache.

The second he notices it, Nate can’t look away from it. It’s impossible to ignore. It’s some stupid, wannabe-Freddie-Mercury looking nonsense that should make Nate think about bad Halloween costumes and ridiculous ‘70s outfits, and probably really cheesy, bad porn. Instead his brain apparently gets some wires crossed and all he can think about is how that horrible, terrible, fuzzy _abomination_ of a mustache would feel against the sensitive patch of skin on his lower stomach at the base of his dick if Sid blew him _right now_. He’s popping a half-chub, right in his jock, out on the ice in front of God and everyone. Nate would absolutely be chill about this development, apart from the fact that he’s never been chill about anything in his life. In the seventh grade, Katie Durham told him his hair looked weird and Nate ended up growing it out for five years.

“Uh,” Nate stutters out, reduced to abominable caveman grunts after all but his last two brain cells have been decimated by that truly horrendous mustache. Then he reminds himself that those kinds of thoughts are extremely inappropriate to have about your summer workout buddy who you are very casual pals with, _get it together Nathan._

He must say that last part out loud, because EJ, who is skating by him at that moment, gives him a weird and slightly judgemental look. Which reminds Nate that he has entirely different problems right now than Sidney’s mustache, namely, a game they definitely need to win, and a teammate he needs to have a talk with.

* * *

They win the game, and although it was close and hard-fought, the mood in the locker room is upbeat, enough that some of the guys are talking about going out later. Gabe is the one who asks Nate, nodding over at him from two stalls over, sunny as ever.

“Nah, I’ve got plans, thanks boys,” Nate says neutrally, bowing out.

“Aw, come on, man,” Tyson calls over, grinning at him. He’s obviously still pretty nervous about the EJ Situation and trying to find a human shield for it. Unfortunately, the current object of Tyson’s affection can fucking hear him and visibly stiffens up behind Tyson. This is probably due to the fact that Nate still hasn’t had the opportunity to clarify to his friend and teammate that no, he isn’t fucking Tyson; and Tyson, who is too oblivious to even notice that issue, hasn’t had the opportunity to clarify to his hookup that no, the other night wasn’t a one-off because although he’s very confused, he’s kind of really into EJ.

And this, right here, is why Tys is fucking awful sometimes. He’s nice and fun, generally, but sometimes he’s just _so oblivious_ , ultimately misstepping so badly that it borders on cruelty. This is also not helped by the fact that he’s not— not the bravest guy.

Sue Nate, that might be a shitty thing to think about his best friend, and it’s not like Nate is a saint or anything, but Tyson gets intimidated sometimes and sees nothing wrong with taking the easy way out. And that’s okay, most of the time that’s none of Nate’s business, and he’s not one to judge anyway— but right now, in this situation that Nate is going to have to help fix somehow because of Tyson’s obliviousness and his cowardice, he takes a moment to be a little pissed about it.

Nate takes a breath, like his therapist told him, and pushes down his immediate instinct to be a huge pushover and help Tyson immediately anyway.

“I’m not ditching Sid for you, buddy,” Nate says, as kindly as he can manage at that moment.

Tyson nods, distracted enough to calm his jitters a little. Then, presumably realizing what kind of evening Nate is in for, goes, “Oh. Yeah, no, of course. Good luck, man.”

And then, sometimes, Nate is forcibly reminded that Tys is a loyal and reliable and earnest friend, all qualities that more than make up for his shortcomings.

Nate claps his best friend on the shoulder as a goodbye and resolves to stop by EJ’s room and clear this all up as soon as he’s not late for his dinner date.

* * *

Nate is pretty fidgety when he shows up at Sid’s front door with the bottle of wine from his secret basement stash.

Sid looks amazing when he opens the door, of course, as always. He’s got a tailored white shirt on and his navy dress pants. No tie, both top buttons undone, and no jacket— Nate’s mouth dries up when he sees Sid’s pecs straining against the shirt. Damn that tailor from Montreal.

Nate always makes a conscious effort to be aware of his rose-tinted glasses, but it’s pretty hard to tell yourself you’re just being an infatuated dumbass when the object of your affections is objectively a very attractive, well-dressed man. Most of the time, anyway— Nate is aware of the yellow crocs and the truly horrendous jock strap. Not to mention the mustache, which— _yeah_ , Sid definitely didn’t shave that off after the game. Like a fuzzy worm, it’s still sitting right on top of his full upper lip, and Nate despairs for a moment at how he’s still grotesquely, bizarrely attracted to it.

Sid, thankfully oblivious to Nate’s internal crisis, greets him with his normal cheerful grin and gives him one of those friendly hugs with a clap on the back before letting him inside.

“God, what the fuck _is_ that thing,” Nate blurts out abruptly, showcasing an atrocious loss of control over several bodily apparatuses in the process, namely: his brain, his mouth, and everything between.

Sid, thankfully, takes it well; always one to smile in response to a chirp. “That’s a pretty rude thing to say to someone who’s cooked you dinner, you know,” he quips, eyebrows raised, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“I just mean that weird bug living on top of your lip, not the rest of you,” Nate says, and then: “ _you_ look good.” It slips out of his mouth before he can stop himself, and he immediately has to suppress the violent urge to bang his head against the nearest wall.

But Sid just smiles, pink rising in his cheeks, and his eyes crinkle handsomely at the corners of his eyes when he teases— corny and unoriginal as hell, because _Sid_ — “well, you don’t look too bad yourself for someone who got caught hooking.”

Nate rolls his eyes, but his body betrays him: he blushes so intensely he can feel it; heat rising up the back of his neck and up his chest, in his cheeks and his forehead. He must look like a splotchy tomato, but Sid just laughs in his dorky way, walks over deeper into the house and gestures for Nate to follow.

“Hey, it’s some good, honest work that I do, don’t knock it,” Nate retorts, a little too late and off-beat as he steps into the entryway. 

Sid is usually only like this fresh off a win: bright and giggly, blushing and almost glowing with it, and Nate wonders for a second if Sid smoked up before Nate got here. There’s something inherently more relaxed in the way he holds his shoulders, somehow. He’s unbelievable, irresistible. Nate is really glad they only play Pittsburgh twice a year, because if he had to face this more often than he already does, he would probably do something stupid like climb into Sid’s lap and kiss him or confess his undying love for him.

Or stand there like an overwhelmed idiot, staring at him because he just looks too gorgeous to handle when he’s this happy, the way Nate is currently doing. 

Shit.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Sid says, predictably, laughing and wandering away to the kitchen.

“It’s just the mustache,” Nate says weakly, which it isn’t really— but whatever, Sid doesn’t need to know that.

Nate mentally smacks himself, pulls it together, and follows Sid into the kitchen. 

“So I wanted to try something new tonight,” Sid calls out as he walks over to the oven, “So I switched up the sauce a little, otherwise it’s just— why are you looking at me like that?”

Nate absolutely cannot hide his grin, can’t bite it back when he drawls out, “something new? Are you feeling okay there?”

Sid grins back and rolls his eyes, says “I’m not just a one-trick pony, you know. I am moving into a new summer house after all.”

Nate doesn’t really answer fast enough, mostly because he’s still a little bothered by the fact that they’re not going to be neighbours when he finally finishes construction on his stupid property by the lake. “Sure, Mr. PB&J.”

The kind of lame jab is especially effective for some reason, and Sid laughs. “What can I say, I know how I like my sandwiches.”

* * *

After dinner, in the cab on the way back to the hotel, Nate finally relaxes. Despite his misstep last week, dinner was entirely normal— really nice, even. It reminds him of another, similar evening this summer, when they sat on Sid’s back porch in the low light. After smoking his daily dose after dinner, Sid let Nate join him outside to shoot the shit a little and watch the sun go down over the lake. 

As a general rule Sid is— hilariously enough— incredibly anal about where he smokes. For someone who needs as much THC as Sid to combat his concussion syndrome, Nate would have thought that Sid would forgo the inconveniences to smoke his meds, but nope: he always insists on going outside, to the small lawn chair sitting on the very corner of his outdoor patio, and on the patio door being closed for the duration of his intake and for up to ten minutes afterward. There’s even a designated smoking coat up on a hanger on the patio, because not being a control freak is probably illegal on Crosby property. 

Sid seems to hate the smell, too, preferring to stock up on vapes and various concentrated oils to smoke, the smell of which doesn’t cling quite as much to his clothes and skin. This, weirdly enough, leads to Sid having a very singular scent. At first, Nate couldn’t figure out what it was, he just noticed something vaguely familiar in his nose underlying Sid’s natural smell and cologne whenever they hugged hello and goodbye, but nowadays he can pointpoint it exactly: there’s his preferred cologne, the underlying scent of Sid’s BO, and under it a faint herbal note from the weed. 

Before he met Sid, Nate had never smelled a milder weed smell in his life; he didn’t think it was possible for weed to smell that subtle before Sid. But it figures that the uptightness Sid has about his smoking habits are at least good for that. Or maybe it’s the fact that Nate’s nose has been broken so often it’s become, well, broken. Either way, Sid’s pretty much the most well-mannered stoner Nate has ever even heard of — although the term stoner probably isn’t quite applicable to someone who legitimately needs weed to avoid splitting headaches and nausea every damn day of their life.

Back on the lake, enjoying the late summer sunset, Sid had looked relaxed and a little melancholy in the muted evening glow, and Nate had finally bit the bullet and tentatively brought it up: Nate was concerned about Sid being upset over Fleury being drafted by Vegas in the Expansion Draft.

Sid had stilled for a moment, and then blown out a forceful breath. “Honestly?”

“Yeah, of course honestly,” Nate had replied earnestly, “you know I’m here for you, bud, and I’m worried about you doing okay.”

Sid had rubbed his face tiredly and Nate was made uncharacteristically aware of their age difference for just a few moments.

“I’m better now,” Sid had admitted after a moment, “It was a little rough, and I didn’t want to think about it, and it’s going to be rough going forward, but I’m dealing.”

“That’s not why you’re moving, is it?” Nate had been reluctant to bring it up, and Sid had looked a little taken aback at the question.

“No, Nate, of course that’s not why,” Sid had immediately reassured him.

Nate remembers leaning forward, hesitant about bringing up Dupuis’ blood clot. Back then it had put Sid in really bad shape, and if there was any chance of Fleury’s draft doing the same…

But Sid had been on the same page, as they so often were, and made sure to turn to catch Nate’s gaze to say, “look, I just wanted to say thanks. For being there for me when Duper… when he retired.” Sid had looked so fucking earnest, staring into Nate’s soul with his amber eyes. “You’re always there for me when I need you and I really, really appreciate it, Nate. But I promise this isn’t like that, Flower’s healthy. It’s like a trade, you know?”

Nate had rubbed the back of his neck, looking away. “Yeah, I guess, I just remember— and I just wanted to check up on you, it’s no big deal.”

“It kind of is, to me. You’re a really good friend. And I know I’m not as good at doing the same for you—“

“Come on, that’s not true. When I hurt my shoulder, you called all the time, and you helped me feel a lot less discouraged.”

Sid had smiled in response, and after that they’d moved onto lighter topics. But thinking back on it now, with Pittsburgh’s city lights rushing past him, that’s probably when Nate’s feelings deepened, widened into something bigger. Not that evening on the lake— sure, he’s desperate to know Sid, to get to know all the little facets of him, and he falls deeper with every new sliver of Sid that shines through as a matter of principle. But when Nate broke his shoulder; when he was hurting and disappointed and miserable; when Sid saw the broken, bitter parts of Nate and still wanted to be the shoulder Nate leant on— that man was who Nate softened up for, the Sid who could carry so much belief and genuine care inside him for someone as unimportant as Nate.

Not generally, Nate’s not being self-deprecating or anything, he knows that to a bunch of people he can be important and he doesn’t have self-esteem issues. Much. But he’s a realist, and at the time back when he hurt his shoulder he really wasn’t important to Sid. So it says something about Sid, that he would show so much tenderness and care for someone who he wasn’t really connected to; someone he didn’t have all that much in common with except for a birthplace.

* * *

When the cab finally stops in front of his hotel and Nate makes his way inside, it’s late, and he figures most of the others will have returned already since it’s a morning flight that they’re taking over to Washington tomorrow. Sure enough, when the elevator dings open on his floor, all seems pretty quiet, so he’s not prepared to bump into someone when he rounds the corner.

“Oh, sorry, that’s my bad,” he says automatically, good Canadian upbringing kicking in before he even realizes that he just almost bowled over his fellow alternate.

EJ takes a stiff step sideways as if he, too, has only just noticed that Nate is his late-night run-in. He doesn’t really look at Nate, but manages to at least address his ear as he mumbles coldly “I’m fine,” clearly not really talking about Nate bumping into him.

Great. Because of course there was never going to be a way to put this conversation off any longer. Nate sighs and prepares himself for a really fucking awkward conversation. Tyson owes him so much.

“EJ, wait,” he says as EJ’s stepping away.

EJ pauses, shoulders still stiff and up by his ears. For a second, as Nate tries to figure out how to spit out the right words without tripping over them, there’s an awkward silence.

“I thought you should—,” Nate says, at the same time as EJ spits out, “You know—,” and they both pause awkwardly. Then, EJ picks up again, stiff as a board: “look, just so you know, if you’re serious about Tyson you should probably watch out, he’s kind of screwing around right now.”

“He’s not ‘screwing around’, EJ.”

“Sorry to be the one to tell you this,” EJ insists, not sounding sorry at all, “but he really is.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Erik, I’m not fucking Tyson,” Nate snaps, too tired to be less blunt. “And no, he _isn’t_ screwing around. The only person he’s screwing is you. And yeah I’m sure, he spent all of last night getting drunk and whining on my couch about you, dude, so not really likely.” 

EJ’s stiff shoulders still in an actively attentive way and he turns his face a little, and Nate knows he’s got his attention.

“He did?”

“Yeah,” Nate says. And then, in a mortifying fit of honesty, “I’m otherwise occupied and interested anyway, so he’s all yours, buddy.”

EJ seems to deflate at that, and turns enough toward Nate to catch his eye.

“Thank you, Nate,” EJ says after a moment, apparently having heard the truth in Nate‘s words, “and sorry for…”

“What, being kind of a bitch?” Nate asks, just tired and amused now. “Hey, it was only twenty percent bitchier than you usually are, it’s all good.”

EJ shoves him at that, but there’s a smile playing around his lips, and Nate knows he’s been forgiven. Nate nods back, mentally checks “be a great friend” off his to-do list, and, sensing the end of the conversation, starts shuffling away. As he starts down the hallway to his room, EJ casually falls into step with him. “So, about that, hypothetically speaking, do you think I should bring Tyson Dairy Queen or chocolate?”

“Buddy,” says Nate, companionably patting EJ on the back as they walk down the hall, “I think a tub of Chocolate Fudge Brownie will put you on the nice list forever.”

* * *

The morning after they get back into Denver four days later, Nate wakes up and sees a text from Tyson saying “omg what did you tell him” closely followed by “ICE CREAM!!!!” and then “guess what :)))))))))))))” 8 hours later. So Nate figures he’s done his duties as a friend and teammate.

* * *

Nate can feel the bass thumping through him when he steps into the club. It’s pretty unusual for Sid to be found in this kind of place; these days he usually prefers bars or his own home to hang out in, but Sid texted him this address and here Nate is, unthinkingly following Sid’s directions and finding himself, once again, incapable of denying him anything. Nate circles around, moving over to where the bar is, when he spots an easily overlooked entrance to a VIP area, a bouncer discreetly leaning against the wall next to it.

He goes up to him, and is about to talk the guy into letting him upstairs when Sid bursts through the curtain, flushed and a little sweaty.

Sid immediately brightens up when he sees Nate, leans over and yells something into the bouncer’s ear, who nods, glances at Nate, and takes a small step back to let him through. Nate nods at him as he passes, and follows Sid, who cranes his neck back every now and then to make sure Nate is following.

Once they get to the heart of the VIP area, the music isn’t quite so loud, and it seems to be more akin to a private bar. Sid seems to be at least somewhat soothed by this, because he immediately relaxes a little. Nate is privately a little suspicious of Sid being out in a club, but he’ll probably figure out the reason later. For now, he’ll just enjoy the drinks and the good company.

The night progresses— well, not quite slowly, but it doesn’t rush by either. Nate makes nice with the other Penguins at the table, being an Avalanche minority. Sid often butts in and provides background commentary next to Nate, and a couple hours into the evening Nate ends up offering to buy Sid his next drink. He ends up at the bar, trying to silently reassure himself that him offering to buy Sid a drink really didn’t sound as desperate as he thinks it did when a chick comes up to him and hits on him.

He’s surprised and actually pretty impressed with the chick’s boldness, because this really happens rarely— and she had the balls to make a move on him in the two minutes that he’s away from the table.

“Sorry,” he says politely, glancing at the table significantly, “but it’s kind of a boys’ night out, you know? Can’t really leave them hanging.”

“I’m sure they wouldn’t mind you having a bit of fun by yourself,” she suggests, shooting him a winning smile, blood red lips stretched wide, and damn; she really is his type, it’s a real shame. If he weren’t here with the man he’s hopelessly in love with and currently ordering said man a drink, Nate would probably take her up on her offer.

“Not tonight, sadly,” he says, grinning at her, “although I’m usually a lot of fun, believe me.”

She looks at him closely, and, seemingly realising that he’s serious and not just playing hard to get, smiles back a little wistfully. “Pity,” she says, “guess I’ll have to make do with someone a little less fun tonight, then.”

“Guess so,” Nate replies, “sorry to disappoint.”

She laughs teasingly. “Well, if you’re going to leave me hanging, at least buy me my next drink before you go back to your party.”

Definitely his type. Nate glances back at the table, but Sid isn’t back yet from the bathroom, so he looks over to the bartender and thinks _oh, what the hell_. “That, at least, I can do.”

When the bartender comes over with his and Sid’s drinks, he lets the woman order a drink for him to pay— scotch on the rocks, what a keeper— and Nate excuses himself after the bartender comes back and he’s paid the drinks.

“Have a good night, better luck next time,” he says— at heart, he’s still a polite Canadian boy.

“Thanks,” the brunette shoots back, “good luck to you too. They’re pretty lucky, whoever they are.”

Nate’s probably visibly surprised, judging by her reaction, and despite himself, his mouth tugs up. “That obvious, huh?”

She laughs. “Kind of,” she admits, and raises her glass to him, a little toast in farewell. He nods back at her, smiling despite himself, and goes back to the table with his drinks.

After getting a grin and a nod from Dumoulin, Nate rolls his eyes and sits back down onto the bench next to a newly returned Sid, sliding him his drink. He strikes up a conversation with Letang and a rookie, something about tailors. Nate just nods along with the conversation and sips his drink. When he glances over to check on Sid, Sid seems to be twisted around and staring at him. 

“Hey,” he greets, and then, because Sid is really looking at him quite intently: “you alright there?”

“Yeah, fine,” Sid waves off, still staring his faceoff stare.

“Have I got dirt on my face or something?” Nate jokes, trying to lighten the mood that Sid has apparently slid into.

“No,” comes back, almost mulishly, but Sid stubbornly doesn’t take the bait otherwise.

“So how about that brunette back there, huh? Talk about a sure thing,” Guentzel loudly interrupts. He leans over half the table to say it, clearly hammered. Next to Nate, Sid stiffens a little, and Nate feels a brief burst of fondness for him. Of course he’s uncomfortable with the idea of things not going according to plan, as if Nate is just gonna ditch him. As if he even could.

“Nah,” Nate explains, grinning, “not tonight. Gotta play designated driver for Sid, here.” He slings a very decidedly casual arm around Sid’s shoulders and gives him a squeeze. Sid relaxes into it a little, easing up his stiff posture, and something in Nate melts and softens at the immediate response. He very carefully doesn’t dwell on it.

“Oh, come on. I’m sure Sid understands, sometimes you’ve got to have a little fun.”

“Some other night, maybe,” Nate shrugs, “I’m not really— “ 

“You should,” Sid bursts out suddenly from next to him, looking very intently at a spot somewhere over on the other side of the bar when Nate turns around to look at him incredulously. “Don’t, uh, let me stop you from doing what you want.”

Nate takes a beat. For a moment, he takes in the tiny furrow between Sid’s brows; the stiff set of his shoulders; the slight angle at which he’s turned away from the table, almost as if to avoid the people in front of him; the way he’s gripping his glass: the last three fingers of his hand forcibly relaxed, the only giveaway being the tense scrape of the nail of his index finger against the glass. Nate dares, and he looks: just for a single, long second.

And then he exhales, comes back to reality, wipes away everything he just wanted to see like dry-erase markers diagramming the play on a whiteboard.

“Come on,” Nate says instead, adopting a joking tone but still too honest by half, “no place I’d rather be than in the driver’s seat while you’re riding shotgun drunk. You don’t think I’d miss that, eh?” He slides the hand that had slid to Sid’s nape back down until he’s hooked his arm around Sid’s neck in half a headlock, a decidedly buddy gesture. Thankfully, everyone at the table is tipsy enough that they buy that inherently pathetic comment as him just chirping Sid. 

From there Guentzel laments that chicks that hot never come up to him, which leads to a decent amount of ribbing from the others, thankfully away from any suggestions that Nate pick up. Sid finally relaxes a little after a minute or so against the arm Nate has slung around him, but for the rest of the night, he has the kind of glint in his eye that Nate usually only sees on the other side of the faceoff circle.

* * *

Sid’s silent on the drive back to Nate’s place, but Nate knows he’s trying not to show how grumpy he really is. It really shouldn’t be as endearing as it is to Nate. Whatever it is that’s bugging him, Nate knows it’s best to head it off now, before Sid can brush it off in the morning and keep stewing on his own, so while they’re toeing off their shoes and sliding out of their coats in the entryway, he opens his mouth to ease into it.

He genuinely has no clue how Sid’s mouth ends up on his.

All he knows is that suddenly, between one moment and the next, his world has turned sideways. Sid’s hand is at the nape of Nate’s neck and he’s dizzily trying not to fall over while Sid’s lips move wetly against his own, dragging Nate’s brain straight into oblivion, his sanity thrown out along the way.

“What—,” he tries, pulling away to at least shrug off his jacket and straighten up, Jesus Fuck, but Sid— apparently straight out of one of Nate’s wet dreams— grabs his shoulder and drags him back against his own body. Nate, helpless against any nudging of Sid’s, closes the space between them, their bodies pressed all up alongside each other; there’s nothing subtle about this. The kiss is deep and messy, almost unbearably intimate with Sid pressed up so close and hot for it. Sid keeps nudging and Nate goes: it’s almost instinct to follow when Sid leads. Nate’s helpless against it; splintering apart with how much he craves the breadth of Sid’s body against his own.

They stumble through the hallway into the living room, and when Sid’s legs knock against the couch, the inexorable grip of his hand tightens against the nape of Nate’s neck. He’s not using a single fucking word, but his hot mouth and that hand on the back of Nate’s neck brook no misunderstanding. And, oh, Nate wants it too, so he _does_ : pushes Sid onto the couch, uses the extra inch he has on Sid to press him down, down, _down_ , until he’s bearing him into the cushions and making him hot for it like that. Sid’s making little grunts that rumble in his chest and almost sound ridiculous— apart from how they’re really doing it for Nate, each of them knocking into Nate like he’s being checked into the boards, hard. Nate feels like he’s drowning, gasping for air, hands clutching Sid, Sid, who’s kissing him and tastes like rum and who wants him, and—  
Rum. Sid is drunk.  
Nate rips himself away from Sid, who whines low in his throat at the loss of contact, brow crinkled and furrowed a little in his drunken stupor. He tries to pull Nate back on top of him, face all flushed and pink. 

Nate did that. Nate kissed him until his lips were pink and wet and rucked up his shirt and he must’ve gotten his hand in Sid’s hair at some point too, because it’s messy, curling over Sid’s forehead.  
Fuck. He looks like the best damn thing Nate has ever seen.

“Wait,” Nate pants, trying to figure out where the fuck up is. Sid won’t have it, though, apparently, because he clumsily sits up, leaning forward to grab Nate’s forearm and tug him back to close the distance Nate has put between them. Their tongues are sliding together, wet sounds embarrassingly loud in the otherwise silent room. Nate keeps his trembling thighs carefully stretched out over Sid’s hips, trying not to just grind down into Sid’s lap. He’s so hard, fuck. His self-control is stretched so unbearably thin he’s shivering with it. They’re both breathing hard against each other’s lips, sloppy as hell, Sid’s gasps sounding so loud in the dark. Nate presses his forehead against Sid’s, tries between breaths to again say, “wait.”

Sid’s face is so, so close, and Nate can’t see anything but his hooded amber eyes and those long, dark eyelashes against Sid’s cheek. His feeble objection comes out no louder than a hoarse, hushed whisper: “we shouldn’t do this, you’re pretty drunk.”

“It’s okay,” Sid immediately insists with all the stubborn insistence of the drunkenly horny. And because he happens to be Sidney Crosby, that really is _all_ the stubborn insistence in the world. So Nate goes, and nothing feels better than giving in and kissing Sid. Just the tiny gust of breath that Sid exhales against Nate’s mouth between kisses has Nate weak in the knees. Everything about him makes Nate helpless, useless, gone. His crinkling eyes, the curls of hair that have come loose from the pomade, the smooth movement of his broad hands when he talks, the plump curve of his bottom lip, the edge of his collarbone peeking out from the deep-cut collar of his shirt. There’s nothing that doesn’t catch Nate’s eye; nothing about Sid that doesn’t make his breath quicken, that doesn’t stun him and lay him out flat. He feels like he’s just been clocked with a two by four. This is everything he’s ever wanted, and he was just going to throw it away.

But it isn’t really what he wants, is it? Because Sid doesn’t really want him, Sid is just drunk and Nate’s just a willing body that Sid wouldn’t want otherwise anyway.

Nate’s _convenient_. Nothing more.

Nate wrenches himself away, gasps, “No, I can’t—”

Next thing he knows, he’s stumbled away, off the couch. His chest feels tight and panicky, and he needs to go, _now_ . He gathers every ounce of strength left in his tired, hurting heart and takes one last look at Sid: disheveled, dazed, and hotter than hell, lying on his couch. Then he takes a breath, gives into the siren at the back of his head screaming _orange, orange, orange,_ and steps away.

“I gotta— I’m gonna. Talk to you tomorrow,” Nate manages to croak out somehow. His voice is shot and cracks in the middle, and he must look pretty spooked, because Sid looks at him and seems to sober up a little.

“Wait,” he says, sounding almost lost— Nate has _never_ heard him sound like that before. “Are you okay? I don’t—”

Nate can’t stand Sid sounding like that. “I’m good,” he promises hastily, “just— we’ll talk tomorrow, okay? But I’m good, I swear.” He pauses before turning away entirely. If he looks at Sid for another second, he’s going to crawl right back into his lap. “Uh, you know where the guest room is.” 

And without another glance back, Nate flees up into his room. He doesn’t know how he manages to stop himself, but he doesn’t run back into the living room and beg Sid to hook up with him after all. As he shakily shucks off his clothes— basically on autopilot at this point— he has the hysterical thought that it really is an achievement, to have sex with Sidney Crosby served to him on a silver platter and reject it. Nate slides into his terribly empty bed and thinks detachedly that he should really get a medal for his phenomenal self-control.

If only it weren’t so fucking sad.

* * *

It’s not really surprising that Nate doesn’t catch a lick of sleep. He manages to stop hyperventilating and lie down in bed, but he can’t bring himself to sleep. Usually he’d get off, but the panic pretty much kills his libido, and he can’t even deal with the concept of jerking it with Sid on the other side of the hallway. He tosses and turns, then lies very still for a while, and ends up giving it up as a lost cause around 7, at which point he takes a shower and starts on breakfast.

The Penguins have a practice at the rink scheduled for 11, and the Avs have one at 12. Nate’s kind of hoping that the hangover will prevent Sid from getting up too early and also from remembering half the evening, so he can avoid the issue. He feels bad about that another hour later, at which point Sid will really need to start getting up if he wants to be on time for practice. He pulls some more eggs out of the fridge and trudges upstairs to wake up Sid.

Nate can’t suppress his blush when he tentatively knocks and cracks the door. He mumbles “breakfast’s ready,” and gets the hell out of there before he has to look at Sid’s bedhead. 

While he’s making an attempt at scrambled eggs, he worries for a second that maybe Sid didn’t really wake up from that, but then the shower turns on in the upstairs bathroom and Nate lays off the self-guilt for a bit. He’s in the middle of plating the scrambled eggs when he hears Sid come down the stairs, and he busies himself with grabbing cutlery and some water for them both. He’s trying to prepare himself for the inevitable: Sid is going to write it off as being drunk and horny, and ask him never to talk about it again. Nate is going to sit here and listen and only have his breakdown once Sid’s safely outside of the city limits of Denver.

But Sid just says, “morning,” and then, after audibly sliding into one of the stools at the kitchen island, “thanks for breakfast.”

Despite the general background level of freaking out that Nate is doing inside his own head, breakfast passes pretty much entirely silently. There’s a point when Sid finishes up his eggs where he looks like he’s going to say something, and Nate feels a knot of dread in the pit of his stomach, but Sid’s lips just press together tightly and his jaw muscle twitches and the moment passes. 

Nate tries not to let it show how hard the relief hits him.

Finally, as Nate’s about to walk him to the door, Sid surprisingly says, “Hey, I got you something for Christmas. I was going to slip it under the tree, but I guess you don’t have one, so I’ll leave it out here.”

“Thanks,” Nate says, visibly surprised at first and then relaxing with a small smile. “I didn’t think to get you anything this early,” he admits sheepishly.

“No worries,” Sid says. He’s smiling a little, but his eyes look somehow tired. “just don’t open it before Christmas, hey?”

“What do you take me for?” Nate jokes lightheartedly, and despite the slight stiffness in his shoulders, it’s remarkable how easy it is to slide back into his usual teasing.

Out of his inner jacket pocket, Sid pulls out a small, flat box. He puts it on the edge of the kitchen island carefully, then grabs his bag and makes for the door. Nate kind of wants to say something, but he’s not sure _what_ , exactly. It doesn’t end up mattering anyway, because Sid pauses inside the door, says, “see you later,” all casually, and then slips out.

Well, that’s that, then.

* * *

Since they have three off days that span Christmas, the Avs Christmas dinner is scheduled for the 24th, for those teammates that aren’t taking a trip to see their families. Gabe reminds them all on the 23rd, on the red-eye back from their win over the Yotes. 

Nate supposes this explains in an objective sense how he finds himself getting cornered by his captain in said captain’s kitchen while looking for some beer, although Nate personally still kind of despairs at how exactly his life got to the point that his captain felt the need to corner him on a national holiday.

“So, Crosby, huh?” Gabe says, apropos of fucking nothing, leaning back against his marble counter like he’s not about to be a dick.

Nate tries to keep it cool, and not visibly flinch. He’s been trying not to think about Sid for the past couple of days. After that awkward morning in the kitchen, they’d only seen each other at the game later that day, but that was only in passing. It’s not like either of them are particularly chatty to non-teammates on game days. After the Avs won, the Penguins had to leave for the airport straight away, and Nate hasn’t heard a word from Sid since then.

He hasn’t been thinking about it. It’s totally normal and fine. It’s _fine_.

“What about him?” He asks, nonchalantly cracking his beer open. He fumbles it a little, but that’s just ‘cause Gabe imports some viking-proof brand from Sweden that he’s pretty sure counts as hard alcohol in the States. No other reason.

“A little bird told me that both of you have something going on,” Gabe asserts.

“Nope, nothing going on,” Nate denies, thinking _damn it, Tyson_. It’s pretty outrageous that Nate can’t immediately chew Tyson out in person, who’s too busy sneaking off with his new toothless boyfriend. After the suggestive straw-sucking he witnessed EJ doing earlier in front of Tyson, they’re probably fucking in Gabe’s upstairs bathroom while Nate is left to suffer under their captain’s thumb. Traitors.

“Oh well, if nothing’s going on,” Gabe replies, clearly not convinced, “I mean, I was going to ask how you’re doing, as your friend, because you seemed kind of upset about a seemingly consensual drunk hookup, and as your _friend_ , I was worried, but if there’s _nothing going on_ , well.”

“I’m not _upset_ ,” Nate interjects forcefully, but Gabe just raises his eyebrows.

“Nathaniel, you’ve spoken like five words in the past week. To the entire _team_ , collectively.”

“But we didn’t hook up,” Nate insists stubbornly, switching tracks, because five words per week is a completely fine amount and Gabe is just a judgemental extrovert. 

Gabe is still obviously not convinced, if his judgemental silence is anything to go by.

“We didn’t!”

“You had a hickey that only faded two days ago, Nate. And mustache burn.”

Nate flinches involuntarily and hunches in on himself a little. “No, we—,” Nate breaks off, frustrated. He pinches the bridge of his nose and breathes. In, out. _Think of how you want to articulate yourself, Nathan_ , he imagines his therapist saying. Then, finally, he manages to croak out, “orange.” 

“What?” 

“I— it’s, I mean, fuck, code orange. It’s a code orange. He was an orange.”

“Pretty sure he’s a hockey player, actually,” Gabe grumbles, still visibly confused.

“No,” Nate clarifies, finally on firmer ground now, “it’s a code. Tyson and I use it for when we get drunk.”

“You guys have a safeword?”

“No, it’s a bro code. Orange means you’re drunk and doing something you wouldn’t usually do, and the code dictates the other bro calls it quits and gets you into bed— to sleep! To get you to sleep.”

“That just sounds like a safeword.”

“That doesn’t sound like a—,“ Nate starts, then stops, because what the hell, it kind of actually does. How did he never notice that? “Not the point. He was definitely drunk and I would’ve been taking advantage.”

Gabe is a really good friend when he wants to be, and he obviously does right now. He listens intently, seems to think about it for a second, and then says, far more calmly than the situation warrants, “I don’t know how to say this, but it honestly just sounds like you were being kind of a chickenshit. No, let me finish. Look, Nate, you’re generally really weird and intense, and I’m not sure what you’re expecting here. But there’s obviously something there, you just need to go tell him you’re obsessed with him.”

“I’m not— obsessed, that’s not,” Nate protests helplessly, mostly because he’s a sucker and can’t really argue the weird and intense part.

“Nate,” Gabe says gently, in that morally superior, condescending way he has, “do you know how often Crosby texts other people?”

“Uh. No?”

Gabe sighs, as if he’s a generous saint put upon by Nate’s bumbling stupidity.

“ _He doesn’t_ , Nate,” Gabe finally says, the _duh_ heavily implied, “Listen, there’s a captains group chat and an NHLPA group chat that he’s a part of, and the only reason I even know he’s in those is because once a year, when the shit hits the fan on an important issue, there’ll be a text from an unknown number and everyone immediately takes that text as the holy gospel of the hockey gods. I don’t even know how it’s _possible_ to be in a group chat with an unknown number. And the majority of his team doesn’t even _have his number_ because there’s a three year minimum roster requirement to get it, and you have to ask for it through either his agent or his alternates. Meanwhile _you_ ,” Gabe jabs his finger at Nate’s chest, “take it for granted that he texts you once a week because you think that’s just _normal texting behaviour_.”

“Uh,” Nate says, kind of caught off guard by Gabe’s intensity, “it isn’t?” And upon seeing Gabe’s perfect eyebrow cocked, “it isn’t,” in what he hopes is a more assertive tone.

“There’s been a running rumor for half a decade that he has a full rink in his basement,” Gabe says out of nowhere, as if that makes any sense, and before Nate can say, _what the fuck, Gabe_ , and also correct him that it’s actually a backyard rink, and not so much a proper rink as a little deck only really suited for shinny, he continues, “I know that you know if that rink exists, and that proves my point. Crosby is a _huge freak_ , Nate, and so are you,” as if that’s a fact. Nate wants to protest on Sid’s behalf, but Gabe concludes, “So just go tell him you want his freak babies and live freakily ever after.”

“If you know that I know,” Nate says slowly, not quite ready to process that last bit yet, “why haven’t you ever asked me about the basement rink?”

Gabe rolls his eyes. “Asking you is cheating. We established it in the revised betting pool rules of 2014.”

“Who the hell is ‘we’?” Nate asks, increasingly more bewildered by the second. 

“Not to worry,” Gabe soothes, as if he’s doing a James Bond impression, the patronizing blond bastard. “Anyway, go talk to him and stop making us worry. Got it?” Before Nate can reply, Gabe continues, unbothered: “I have given you my correct opinion, and am now going to check in on my girlfriend, if you’ll excuse me.”

And with that, he of course proceeds to slink off, like the perfect idiot he is, leaving Nate to call after him, “what the dick, Gabriel?”

* * *

Gabe’s words are still ringing in the back of his head when he gets home. It’s late and he’s tired, so he almost stumbles up the stairs to collapse right into bed, when he remembers the present Sid left him. He briefly considers the merits of throwing it away unopened, but he honestly knows that that’s never going to happen, not with a gift of Sid’s. And he has to open it sometime. So he goes to get it from the exact spot Sid left it on the kitchen island.

When he opens the box, he doesn’t really get what he’s looking at, because there’s no world in which that makes sense, why would Sid give him a random key for Christmas? But Nate turns over the delicate paper tag attached to the key with clumsy fingers, and sees the words neatly written out in Sid’s scraggly handwriting: _I’m not going anywhere._

It takes a minute, but when Nate gets it, it slams into him like a ton of bricks, right there in the middle of his kitchen: this is the key to Sid’s house in Nova Scotia. The house he isn’t selling after all, because it’s the house that Sid considers his home and refuge above all others, and he just gave Nate a _key_ to it. Let him have unrestricted access to his last sanctum, his innermost layer of privacy, even though by the summer the construction on Nate’s house will be finished, and they’ll be neighbours anyway. Even after all that happened that night before their last game, after Nate rejected him because he didn’t just want to be a one and done, Sid had the key on him that whole time— _holy_ _fuck_ , and Nate _rejected_ _him_ , what has he _done_ —

Sid had the key on him that whole time.

Oh.

 _Sid loves me_ , is Nate’s first faint thought. His second, much more determined one is, _I can never tell Gabe that he was right._ His third is, _Oh fuck, I have to tell Sid that I want to have his freak babies._

He has a flight to book.

* * *

Nate has thought about this. He thought about it on Christmas, when he had to restrain himself from coming straight to Pittsburgh— he knew that Sid was spending Christmas with his family, and Tyson kept his impulse control in check by making the very valid point that crashing the incredibly private family Christmas would not be conducive to seducing Sidney Crosby. He thought about it on New Year’s, just before collapsing into bed after their exhausting evening game against the Islanders. Nate‘s thought about it on flights and bus rides and in cars, in hotels and at home and at the rink. 

He’s even freaked out about it— with Tyson on the phone at three in the morning— questioning frantically if maybe the key was a buddy gift after all. Tyson, of course, just squinted at him until Nate realised he was maybe overthinking it, because the squint is Tyson’s most effective way to deal with Nate being phenomenally un-chill about life. Nate couldn’t _see_ the squint, being on the phone and all, but the silence was very squint-like.

Essentially, Nate has thought about this moment every day since Christmas, going through different ways to word exactly what he wants to say so he can get it out right, sounding out words in his mouth, the exact phrasing to brook no misunderstandings. 

So it figures, really, that when Sid pulls the door open, Nate thinks, _oh, he shaved,_ and then _oh no, the tailored shirt_ and then not much else.

Sid blinks at him, clearly not much more verbally inclined himself. Although that might be because Nate’s supposed to be hanging out in the LA sun with Tyson. Instead, he’s freezing his ass off on a Sewickley porch at 9AM due to the January weather in Pennsylvania, just a couple of hours before Sid’s supposed to fly out to some remote cottage for his bye week.

“Nate?” Sid breathes, apparently gathering his wits much faster without the perils of hot tailor-made shirts to deal with. Unlike Nate, who’s basically caught so off-guard by his initial fumble that he now has no clue what to say. He had a plan, damn it.

“...Nate?” Sid asks after a beat, more inquisitive than surprised that time, “you’re catching flies, buddy.”

Nate starts panicking a little— he’s totally screwing this up. Fuck, he can’t remember a lick of the wording either. It was important, too, he can’t just say _some shit_ —

“Come on, why are you staring like that?” Sid is saying, edging into slightly whiny and nervous territory, “I shaved the mustache—“

“Sid,” Nate interrupts, fucking _finally_ finding his voice, “It was never about the stupid mustache.”

“What— _Oh_ ,“ and then Sid isn’t saying anything anymore, because Nate is kissing him, right in the damn doorway, and he’s kissing _back_.

Sid’s mouth is searing against his own, the best kind of way to warm up coming in from the snow. When Nate steps in close and cups his face, his body is a line of welcoming heat against Nate’s, the feel of him just as solid, just as incredible as Nate remembers. Sid shivers when Nate’s fingers slide into his hair, right up against Nate, so it feels like the shiver is crawling down the length of Nate’s own spine.

“Mm, cold,” Sid murmurs right against Nate’s mouth. Despite the complaint, it doesn’t seem to actually deter him. He eagerly slides his warm hands into Nate’s coat and pulls him in around the waist. “Hold on,” he whispers, and kicks the front door closed with his foot, apparently disinclined to get his hands off of Nate.

Nate really can’t argue with that logic.

Sid feels amazing in Nate’s arms. His lips are plush and warm, and when his tongue slides into Nate’s mouth, Nate feels the wet heat of it tingle down to his toes. Unlike last time, Nate has the opportunity to savor it, draw it out and let himself feel the warmth of Sid’s broad body against his own. He indulges himself, cradles Sid’s face and sucks on Sid’s lower lip when he takes a breath.

“I opened your present,” Nate rasps finally, after half an eternity. He’s mostly warmed up by now.

“Yeah?” Sid asks, looking up from Nate’s mouth and skewering him on those dark eyes. 

“Yeah,” Nate replies, “really considerate of you, I can come by for all of my meals now, won’t have to make you come to the door every time—“ and then Nate’s cut off by Sid’s mouth back on his own.

“You’re full of shit,” Sid murmurs, delighted and breathless between kisses. Nate smiles against his mouth. 

“Yeah,” Nate admits dumbly, too earnest by half, and leans in to taste Sid’s smile again.

They make their way into the living room, Sid shoving off Nate’s coat urgently and tugging him along to make out on the couch like teenagers. The frank eagerness of it gets to Nate, gets a half-chub going way too fast in his jeans.

“Nate,” Sid murmurs against his lips, a plea and a command all in one. He pulls Nate into his lap, and Nate is helpless to spread his thighs around Sid‘s wide hips and kiss him back. He feels Sid’s hot palm drag up his thigh, thumb digging into Nate’s inseam in a mean tease, until he’s groping him, blunt and mean through his pants. Suddenly, it‘s Game Over for Nate. He rips himself away from Sid, breathing hard, stopping Sid from pulling him back in with a hand on his shoulder.

“Look, I’m going to need to blow you,” Nate manages, kneeing his way down Sid’s body and resting a hand on the top button of Sid’s jeans. He keeps looking at Sid, to check in, but it turns out he probably shouldn’t have worried. 

“Need to, eh?” Sid says, cocky as though they’re getting competitive about sprints again, loose and easy and nowhere near tensing up. 

Yeah, this is going to be awesome. Nate unbuttons Sid‘s jeans.

“Yeah, the Dogg needs to show Lil’ Croz how it goes,” Nate answers, deadpan, and then needs to turn his face into Sid’s meaty thigh to suppress the urge to join Sid’s responding uncontrollable giggle-fit. Once Nate has wrangled his giddiness enough that they’re not going to end up having laughing fits instead of sex, Sid’s laughter has died down and he’s beaming down at Nate, ruddy blush on full display. 

“You like being my rookie, huh?” Nate can’t resist teasing, “like getting shown the ropes by the Dogg?” Although Nate‘s mostly joking, the idea seems to do something for Sid, because Nate sure as shit notices how he firms up a little in his boxer briefs. He can’t not just lean forward and start mouthing at Sid’s dick, so he does. Nate sucks him a little through the fabric, getting the fabric damp and sticky with his mouth. He nuzzles into Sid’s crotch and breathes in the funk there: stale sweat, probably from his morning workout, and that very characteristic dick funk that should probably be gross. Instead, it just pulls at something in his lizard brain that gets his dick hard. 

“Better pay attention, Sid, I’m gonna be testing you on this,” Nate says, patting Sid’s hip to get him to lift up a little so Nate can pull his jeans and underwear down properly. He pulls them off completely and throws them somewhere without looking, getting a good look at Sid’s cock for the first time. 

As it turns out, Sid is kind of hung. Technically, Nate knew that, what with sharing a locker room at Worlds and during the summer for the on-ice parts of training, but there‘s something to be said for the context of seeing a guy‘s dick up close right before you‘re trying to suck it. Nate‘s a little apprehensive, but more than a little eager to fit Sid in his mouth— he‘s an ambitious guy, after all. 

He nuzzles in, starting out by sucking kisses to the base, and working his way up to the head. He sucks the head in his mouth, pops it in and out like a sucker to tease Sid a little bit before sticking his tongue out along the underside and looking up to lock eyes with Sid. It’s a hell of a view, and Sid seems like a guy who appreciates a good show.

Gratifyingly, Sid’s wide-eyed and panting, so Nate sucks him back down. And then he drops his jaw and goes for it; doesn’t stop until Sid’s dick is hitting the back of his throat and he has to adjust his breathing for a second.

There’s just nothing like a dick in his mouth. The weight of it on his tongue, the salty taste, the funk of junk that’s right there when his mouth is stuffed with cock and his nose is crammed at the base of Sid’s dick. He stays down as long as he can— which isn‘t too long, it‘s been a while since he‘s done this— and gasps in air in the break, before sinking down on Sid‘s cock all over again. Sid‘s moaning, low in his throat, palms tensing against Nate‘s shoulders like he‘s trying to keep himself in check, but it‘s just too _good_ —

Nate pulls off with a truly unholy wet sound.

“You ever fucked someone‘s face before?” He pants, voice already rough and low. 

“You gonna ask me if I’m a virgin, next?” Sid snarks breathlessly, the competitive fuck, “I’m older than you, bud.”

Nate replies, a little meanly, “I‘m just asking, I don’t know if you know how to do it properly.”

Sid blushes hard in return, dick jerking, and Nate’s getting a good idea of where this is going. They‘re definitely going to pick back up on that later. But for now, Nate‘s too impatient. He grasps Sid’s palms and drags them up into his hair. Sid’s looks overwhelmed, panting open-mouthed and wide-eyed with arousal. Nate could stay in the warm space between Sid’s thighs forever as long as Sid keeps looking at him like that.

“Fuck my face,” Nate says, hoarse already. 

Sid doesn’t need to be told again; he drags Nate down around his dick, pulls out almost all the way, hesitantly thrusts just a couple of inches back in at first. Nate waits a couple of thrusts for Sid to get into it and start really fucking his mouth, but he seems hesitant— so Nate does what any man would do when he wants his mouth fucked: grab his partner’s ass and pull them in enthusiastically until they start really dicking into his throat.

Nate loves this: the way he has to manage his breathing, so as to not choke, the ache in his jaw as he makes sure to keep his mouth open wide enough, the wet, sloppy sounds as Sid fucks into his mouth— because Nate’s getting _messy_. He can feel some drool running down his chin.

“Nate—,” Sid’s choking out, “I can’t, I’m not gonna—,”

 _Fuck yeah_ , he wants Sid to come down his throat. Nate grips Sid’s ass tighter and tries to loosen up his throat a little more, tries to communicate how much he wants it, and Sid barely holds out enough to get out a “ _Nate—_ ,” in warning before holding his breath and coming silently in Nate’s mouth, his own mouth dropped open and cheeks ruddy with pleasure. Nate takes it all, suckling on Sid’s cock until Sid flinches, at which point he slowly pulls off and gives Sid some more kitten licks before Sid tightens his grip on Nate’s hair and pulls him off properly. 

Fuck, that feels good, Nate forgot how much he likes having his hair pulled. He takes a moment to wistfully reminisce about his longer hair days before another sharp tug goes right to his dick and reminds him that he’s pretty desperate to come himself. He mashes his face into Sid’s tree trunk of a thigh and grinds the heel of his hand against the head of his cock through his jeans; he hasn’t even undone his fly, for fuck’s sake. He can’t help thrusting against his palm; the smell of sweat and sex sits heavy in Nate’s nose and he’s still got the taste of Sid’s cock in his mouth. It’s too much. Nate whines.

“Hey,” Said says, his low, fucked out voice making Nate’s dick throb against his palm, “let me see you. Nate.”

He can’t not obey Sid, not when Sid’s got that slight whine in his voice, demanding something that he won’t understand being denied. In the face of that kind of force of nature, Nate waves his white flag by turning to Sid like a sunflower toward the sun. When Sid presses against his shoulder blades he clambers up entirely gracelessly, offering his mouth and body for Sid to do with what he will. “Yes,” Sid murmurs against his lips urgently, hands scrabbling to undo his belt, “Come on, let me see you come.”

Through their combined clumsy efforts, they manage to undo Nate’s jeans and draw his cock out. Sid grips him firmly, entirely too confident for Nate to handle, and he shudders with it, dropping to his elbows above Sid.

“I can’t— _Sid_ ,” Nate says nonsensically, half out of his mind at the simple touch, far too keyed up already.

“It’s okay,” Sid soothes against his cheek, “I want it, come on,” and then he kisses Nate anywhere he can reach; his cheek, his chin, his nose, his lips— all the while stroking his dick tightly and slowly, steady and stubborn as a metronome, fondling his balls lightly, working him up just right— Nate’s thrusting in helpless little movements— and then, then—

“Want you to come all over me, Nate—,” Sid says, and _oh_ , Nate’s imagining it: Sid all messy, still flushed from his orgasm, all vulnerable and belly up, his cock covered in Nate’s come— 

“ _Sid_ ,” Nate whines, helpless, and comes like a damn freight train, just like Sid wants it. Always like Sid wants it. Sid kisses him through it, gentling his grip on Nate’s cock when Nate finally buries his face in Sid’s neck, just wanting to smell him and be close in the afterglow. Sid smells exactly like he always does, warm and familiar: the exact same cologne he’s presumably been using for the past decade, his shampoo, and a bit of sweat. Sid’s petting at his flank a little and stroking through his hair while he recovers.

“Hey,” Sid murmurs after a little while, voice rough enough that he clears his throat before he goes on, “upstairs?”

It occurs to Nate that they should probably clean themselves up if they don’t want to be scrubbing come off of themselves later, so he acquiesces to Sid’s request by slowly sitting back up and blinking down at him.

Sid looks like a mess in the best way: he’s still wearing the tailored shirt, naked from the waist down, Nate’s come drying all over his soft dick and lower stomach. It probably feels uncomfortable for Sid, but Nate’s already got the sight burned into his retinas; if he could get hard again, this would probably do it.

Sid quirks an eyebrow at him like he knows what Nate’s thinking, and Nate grins at him and gets up on wobbly feet. Sid follows him up, kissing him slowly before patting his cheek and walking towards the stairs with the unspoken expectation that Nate will follow. Nate’s view on their way up the stairs is phenomenal, watching Sid’s ass flex as he leads the way upstairs to the master bedroom and its ensuite bathroom. Sid starts unbuttoning his shirt on their way up, and Nate realises he should probably lose his clothes before they possibly shower. He pulls off the rest of his clothes once they’re on the upper landing, just dropping them to the floor as he goes, and follows Sid into the bathroom.

They rinse off quickly, trading kisses and soap wordlessly, and Sid towels them both off efficiently with his own towel after they’re done, apparently retaining a lot more mental acuity than Nate after his orgasm. Then he goes over into the bedroom and slides into bed, Nate following dumbly and curling into him, settling with an arm haphazardly thrown across Sid’s middle and his face sheltered in the crook of Sid’s neck. He could totally go for a nap like this.

“So I guess you and Tyson aren’t dating,” Sid says, conversationally, like that’s any kind of pillow talk to have.

“Uh,” Nate replies, because he’s still too come-dumb and stuck in nap mode to register that as a complete sentence. Sid starts stiffening up, at which point Nate wakes up a little, realizes what he just said, and goes, “No. I mean, what?”

“You and Tyson,” Sid repeats, totally calm, as though that bizzaro statement makes any more sense the second time.

“What the fuck?”

Apparently embarrassed by getting something vehemently wrong for once in his life, Sid mumbles “I just thought— uh,” and tries turning away a little. There’s a flush starting to crawl up his chest and neck, which looks very appealing, but Nate’s brain is all caught up now.

“Why would you think that I was dating Tyson?” He asks, genuinely confused.

“Never mind,” Sid tries, playing it cool, but Nate’s got his number, now. He grabs his waist to turn him back to face Nate, and when Sid stubbornly refuses to budge, Nate sits up, straddles his waist, and shoves his shoulders into the mattress so that Sid’s forced to look up at him.

Sid’s fully blushing now, somewhere between embarrassed and surprised at the manhandling. Nate briefly wonders if he’s into it, sexually, and resolves to ask him after clearing this up. Thankfully, the manhandling seems to also be persuasive enough by itself for Sid to explain himself.

“After… the night at the club, you were just— and I left the present, but you didn’t say anything, even after Christmas came and went, so I figured maybe you were seeing someone. And I remembered that one text you sent, the one with the leaf blower—,” at which point it’s Nate’s turn to blush, because that shit will embarrass him for the next twenty years, “— and I figured it must’ve been meant for a teammate, and you were so annoyed with Tyson’s dude situation—”

Put like that, Nate can almost see how Sid would reach that conclusion, if it weren’t for one small factor.

“Sid,” Nate says. He’s surely beet red up to his roots, but he forces himself to hold Sid’s gaze. He can’t allow any space for misunderstandings here, this point has to be made. “That text was meant for you.”

It’s Sid’s turn to look incredulous. “What?”

“I was drunk and watching a Pens game,” Nate gets out, all in a rush, “and you scored a _beauty_ , and I just. Thought it was a good idea, apparently.”

They’re staring at each other now like idiots, both of them still sweaty, red-faced and naked, Sid pinned in place by Nate’s bulk.

“Oh,” Sid breathes.

“Yeah,” Nate replies, and decides, “I’m going to kiss you now.”

Sid is entirely on board with that, if the enthusiastic hands sliding up Nate’s thighs are any indication. His mouth opens wet and easy for Nate, and he makes a little noise into Nate’s mouth when Nate leans some of the weight of his upper body experimentally on Sid’s shoulders. Nate immediately backs off a bit, trying to get a better look at his face to gauge whether that was a good noise or not.

“Is that okay?” 

“Yeah.” Sid says it pretty calmly, but his pupils are dilated and his face is still bright red and glowing, so Nate mentally ticks ‘enjoys getting manhandled’ off of his ‘suspected Sid kinks’ list. He leans back over Sid, dropping his body in closer to create a little pocket of heat between them while he gets back to making out with Sid. He lets Sid take some of his weight, and Sid makes that noise into his mouth again. He pushes into Nate’s hands on him, almost like he’s trying to test how well Nate has him pinned, like he likes feeling it. He does that until he’s gasping, so Nate breaks the kiss, lets him pant it out while he busies himself with mouthing down Sid’s throat. He just wants to put his mouth all over Sid, get the lay of the land. Figure out where all of Sid’s sensitive spots are with his lips and tongue. He leans back on his haunches to move down Sid’s chest, but Sid’ insistent hands pull him back up and in close to kiss him again, and okay, Nate can take a hint. He leans a little on Sid again, and Sid groans.

“Nate,” he almost _whines_ , and wow, Nate is never going to get sick of Sid saying his name like that. That’s fucking hot. Then Sid makes another noise against his mouth that sounds a lot more verbal, and Nate lets up a little to let him talk. “Hey,” he rasps, obviously trying to find his words. Nate gives him a moment, because he can be patient when he needs to be. “Uh. This is great, honestly, but I should tell you that I don’t think I’m gonna, again. Tonight,” Sid says, looking at Nate’s mouth.

Nate blinks. “Gonna?”

“Uh,” Sid says, like he doesn’t know how to phrase it, “I don’t think I’m up for another round, is what I’m trying to say.”

Nate stares at Sid, trying to figure out what to do with that. “Okay. So?”

Sid blinks up at him, surprised. “I just thought you wanted…”

“I want to touch you and kiss you any way you like. Not just for sex. I want to make you feel good,” Nate answers bluntly, probably too earnest by half. “That cool?”

“Yeah.” Sid replies, a smile and a blush creeping up, and when Nate leans forward to kiss him softly, he’s more relaxed somehow, some low knot of tension seeped out, leaving him pliant and sweet for Nate. Nate makes a split-second decision, clenches his thighs around Sid’s hips, and rolls them so Sid’s lying between his thighs. It’s a little vulnerable, opening himself up like this physically, but right now, with Sid, Nate revels in the intimacy of it. His hands are freed up to stroke along Sid’s torso, mostly to just feel Sid, but maybe a little to see if Nate can find some sensitive spots. He’s not really using any significant amount of pressure, just slowly, rhythmically stroking his palms up and down Sid’s ribcage, along his spine and across his shoulders, petting all along his skin.

Nate can feel Sid smiling against his lips. After a moment, he hums against Nate’s mouth, and murmurs, “that feels nice.”

“Yeah?” 

“A guy could get used to this,” Sid affirms, opening his eyes. He seeks out Nate’s gaze, and Nate can almost read the question in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Nate says, smiling right back, the sappy one he smiles just for Sid, like the huge dope he is. “Me too.”

Nate gets kissed again for that, slow and lingering. He really doesn’t mind it at all.

* * *

In the end, Sid cancels his remote cottage plans and they stay in Pittsburgh for the entire bye week. Nate’s never going to admit it to anyone but Tyson, but it’s mostly to fuck. Nate would feel more embarrassed about it if he also weren’t having the time of his fucking life. Literally— because on the third day, Sid decides he wants to try bottoming, even though Nate offers for them to try it the other way first, seeing as he has a little more experience with the entire thing. That suggestion derails the entire conversation into some awesome handjobs, although they do end up getting back on track later that day, after orgasms and a meal. As it turns out, sexual negotiations with Sid end up like all negotiations with Sid, because once Sid decides on a certain way he wants something, he’s impatient and determined and swaying him is a Herculean effort. Honestly, it’s not like Nate’s trying very hard to do any swaying. 

Which is how he ends up being called into Sid’s master bathroom to check on Sid’s asshole.

“I don’t know what the correct degree of preparation is here,” Sid is saying over the sound of the water hitting the tile, “can you just help me check?” He sounds a little embarrassed, but they are in Nate’s wheelhouse, and Nate’s not exactly going to turn down the chance to check out Sid’s asshole when it’s offered to him. So he kind of shrugs to himself and pulls the shower curtain away, only to be completely blindsided by what’s on the other side of it.

Sid’s got his forehead pressed to the tile, the water hitting his shoulders and sluicing down his body from there, and he’s arching his ass out obscenely. Both his hands are reached back and occupied: one to pull his cheek out of the way and the other knuckle deep with two fingers inside of him. It’s obviously a struggle to reach properly with his gigantic ass in the way. Nate can relate at least somewhat, being in possession of a hockey ass, although Sid’s definitely struggles are definitely, uh, _bigger_. It briefly occurs to Nate that it might be a little bit narcissistic of him to find someone who so closely resembles his own body type so attractive, but Nate’s honestly gonna lean in to it here. 

God, Sid is so pink and wet down there, Nate just really can’t stop staring. Sid pulls his fingers out, presumably to grab the lube. Transfixed, Nate slowly pushes the very tip of his finger against Sid’s hole, watching as it sinks in to the first knuckle with how loose Sid is already. Sid moans with it.  
  
“Jesus, Nate, just—“ and Nate can hear Sid’s hand slap against the tile when he slides out a little just to push back in, using the thumb of his other hand to tug at Sid’s rim. With the part of his brain that isn’t going sex-stupid, Nate can tell that Sid obviously decided to attack the entire concept of prepping for anal sex the way he does any kind of task: with the focused determination of a thousand burning suns. The slide of his finger is smooth, even without any extra lube. When he teases in the tip of a second finger, Sid opens up for him easily. Sid’s breathing noisily, apparently getting pretty into it if his stiffening dick is anything to go by. 

They can definitely move this to the bedroom. 

“You’re wet enough, for sure,” Nate reassures, and then, without thinking about it, “I could slip inside right now.”

Sid lets out a shocked grunt, definitely the good kind.

“I’m not gonna.” Nate means for it to come out soothing, but it ends up sounding more like a taunt. Like he’s keeping his dick from Sid as a prize to be earned; like he’s trying to make Sid work for it.

Like he wants him to beg to be fucked.

Sid apparently picks up on that interesting idea, because Nate can see his dick twitch. And Nate just has a straight-up Sid kink, so there’s really nothing to be done about his own dick taking an interest in the proceedings. Seems like he didn’t need to worry about Sid not liking having his ass played with.

Fuck, if he lets this go on for much longer, he’s going to fingerbang Sid and then fuck him for the first time bare in the shower. And while that thought definitely makes his dick jerk, it’s probably something to be kept in mind for future times, not acted on right now. There’s a plan here, and Sid will be retroactively grumpy about it if they don’t follow it, even if he’s the one setting them off course.

Calling on some heretofore unknown reserve of restraint, Nate slides his fingers out of Sid with a loud, wet squelch that makes them both blush. “I'm going to go wait in bed,” he says quickly, much more hoarsely than he intends. Then he hurries out of the bathroom before his self-control abandons him.  
Since he got his clothes unintentionally wet in the shower, Nate strips out of them and throws them into Sid’s hamper. Then he feels self-conscious about hanging out bare-assed, so he slips on a pair of boxer briefs and throws himself into Sid’s filthy expensive sheets. Just in time for Sid to come out of the bathroom, dried off but completely unselfconsciously nude and still half hard.

“Why are you still wearing those?” Sid frowns.

“I’m not wearing anything,” Nate replies, which is only undercut by the arc of the briefs flying across the room in the direction of Sid’s hamper, where they land with a soft thump.

Sid apparently finds that amusing and endearing instead of weird and intense, which basically proves that Nate’s landed the jackpot here. Sid climbs onto the bed and sits himself down right in Nate’s lap. He goes right for the kill, leans in and kisses Nate buck-ass nude in his lap like it’s no big thing. It’s casual and familiar, and Nate is so, so into it. It’s not sly or seductive at all, just Sid’s usual bluntness. There’s nothing that could get him hotter faster.

While they’re making out, Nate’s hands slide up to cup Sid’s pecs. He hasn’t really experimented around with how sensitive Sid’s chest is yet, and he’s curious to try. Nate starts out casually running his palms slowly down Sid’s pecs, then cups them more decisively and rubs the rough pads of his thumbs experimentally over Sid’s nipples.

The reaction is almost instantaneous: Sid’s breath hitches and his hips rut down against Nate reflexively.

 _Jackpot_ , Nate thinks.

But Sid grabs at Nate’s wrists, as if to stop him. Nate breaks off, pulling his hands back to hover over Sid’s pecs. “Sorry, did you not like that?”

“No, I just. No one’s ever— I mean, they’re not supposed to— uh.”

From this, Nate gathers that no one’s ever played with Sid’s nipples, which is just a shame, really. Luckily, he knows how to fix that.

“Okay. I’m going to try something, and if you don’t like it, tell me to stop, alright?”

Nate lowers his head, glancing up at a visibly nervous Sid as he goes. He gets a nod though, so he licks flat across Sid’s nipple and sucks it into his mouth.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Sid shouts. He doesn‘t tell Nate to stop.

Nate plays around, kneading at Sid‘s pecs as he goes. He licks and sucks and brings his teeth out to tease a little once Sid’s nipple has hardened into a peak. That elicits a filthy fucking whine from Sid, so Nate switches sides to bring the other nipple up to par. He can feel Sid tugging at his hair as he works, whining and panting all the while and getting Nate‘s cock rock fucking hard in the process. Once he’s done, Sid’s nipples are reddened and a little puffy, glistening with spit. They look fucking _raw_ , and when Nate licks over them a final time to soothe them over, Sid hisses, oversensitive. Nate nips at the curve of Sid’s pec, can’t help himself, and soothes it with his tongue when Sid jerks a little.

Nate looks up and Sid is red in the face, panting and aroused. It’s a hell of a sight. 

“Good?” he asks in a low voice. Sid swallows, looks down at Nate and nods. His eyes look black, the pupils are blown so wide. Now that Nate’s not so single-mindedly focused on sucking Sid’s nipples, he’s definitely paying attention to the trail that Sid’s dick is drooling against Nate’s stomach.

Nate trails his palm down, loosely gripping Sid’s dripping dick in his fist. Sid digs his blunt nails into Nate’s shoulder in response and drops his mouth down to kiss Nate. He’s cupping Nate’s jaw tenderly with one big hand, the other sliding down Nate’s ribcage to come to rest right above his heart, and all of a sudden, Nate feels overwhelmingly full with feeling, his chest bursting with it. Breaking the kiss, he leans up and rests his forehead against Sid’s, taking in the minute details of his face: the slight crinkle in the corners of his eyes, the flutter of his dark lashes as he opens his eyes and looks down at Nate. This close, Nate can make out the little flecks of amber in Sid’s irises. Sid smiles at him easily, more turned on and happy than Nate has ever seen him. Sid moves his thumb up to brush the pad against Nate’s lower lip, and Nate opens his mouth to suck it in a little, scraping his teeth against the pad of it. Sid’s breath hitches in response, his lips parting so that Nate can glimpse the tempting inside of Sid’s mouth. Nate lets Sid’s thumb go, teases, “you gonna let me make you feel good?”

Sid flushes and grins in response. “Only if you put your back into it,” he chirps, “gotta put some effort in, bud.” 

Nate proceeds to nip at one of the blossoming red marks on Sid’s throat to shut him up. “Oh, I’ll put something in alright,” Nate mutters and reaches down to slide a finger back into Sid. Sid’s breath catches at the slight friction and Nate eases it back out carefully. 

“Lube?” He murmurs, and Sid goes, “yeah, just let me—,” and leans over to pull a small bottle out of the top drawer of the nightstand, handing it to Nate. Nate uncaps it and swiftly wets his fingers, getting right back to business by sliding back in with two. Sid’s stretched himself so well in the shower that he takes them easily with the extra lube, blunt nails scraping over Nate’s chest at the sensation. Nate takes his time slowly thrusting them in and out, letting Sid relax into it. After a while he tries angling up a little, trying to find Sid’s prostate with the pads of his fingers— and knows he’s succeeded when Sid shudders and jerks, humping against Nate’s stomach at the stimulation, mouth dropping open.

“Is this good, Sidney?” Nate drawls out, smug as shit, stilling his fingers right up against Sid’s prostate. “Tell me.”

“I— fuck,” Sid sucks in a breath, “yeah. It’s, uh, it’s good. You can move.”

“Like this?” Nate asks innocently and slides out his fingers.

“No, put them back, I want—“ and then his mouth drops open in a long groan as Nate pushes back in meanly with three.

“Like that?” Nate murmurs, hungry for Sid’s pleasure.

“ _Hey_ , yeah, that— that’s so good, bud, _oh_ ,” Sid moans, “keep going, you can— fuck.”

Nate considers fingering Sid for a little while longer— but he’s truly too impatient for it, too eager to get inside Sid.

“Condoms?” Nate asks, half out of his mind already.

“Don’t need ‘em,” Sid gasps, starting to fuck himself back onto Nate’s fingers. He glances down and something seems to occur to him, and he starts, “unless— do you—”

“No,” Nate answers immediately, already feeling winded at the thought of being bare inside Sid, feeling the hot clench of him. The eventuality of unloading deep inside Sid and seeing it drip out of him— it almost does Nate in. 

“Good,” Sid says, grins, kisses Nate. Nate just opens up, easy for it, lets Sid take whatever he wants. “Yeah?” Sid mumbles when he eases up.

Nate drops a kiss on Sid’s shoulder in agreement. He reaches back for the lube and slicks himself up. “Hold yourself open for me, yeah?” he murmurs. Sid responds by resting his forehead on Nate’s shoulder and reaches back with both his hands to pull his fat cheeks out of the way. The back of his neck is scarlet where Nate clasps it to hold Sid against him while he uses the other to aim his dick in the right spot to fuck in.

“That’s so good, just like that,” Nate soothes as he smears his dickhead against Sid’s pucker, unable to resist the filthy little tease.

“Nate, c’mon,” Sid mumbles, as if Nate could ever really deny him anything. Nate presses the head of his cock against Sid’s hole properly— Sid honest-to-god _whines_ — and without further prompting, Sid bears down and splits himself on Nate’s cock. 

Sid sinks down excruciatingly slowly, at first clenching his greedy hole on just the tip. Nate can barely stand it; wants to make it last so bad. Then Sid keeps going, sliding down onto Nate’s cock as slowly as they can both bear it, hitching his hips back up a little once or twice in a slow, filthy slide before pushing back down, until his ass is flush with Nate’s hip bones. They’re both panting, Nate desperately trying to keep his composure.

“You feel amazing,” Nate slurs unthinkingly into Sid’s ear, and Sid shivers and tightens around Nate’s cock, punching a groan out of him. Nate keeps going, completely unrestrained, brain-to-mouth-filter lost in the hungry clutch of Sid’s ass. “So good for me, Sid. So hot and tight inside, I can’t believe it.” And Nate really can’t, is the thing. Sid is here, panting in Nate’s arms and wanting him back just as badly as Nate wants him. Nate must’ve been a saint in his past life.

“Feels full,” Sid replies, dazed and flushed in Nate’s lap.

“You wanna stop?” Nate asks.

“ _No_ ,” Sid says, clamping down stubbornly on Nate’s shoulders like he’s gonna pull out if Sid doesn’t pin him down, “just, let me—,” Sid breaks off and starts squirming in Nate’s arms. He finally lifts up on his knees and drops back down on Nate’s cock; starts riding him slowly. “Yeah,” Sid sighs, satisfied, “like that.” 

God, he looks incredible like this: eyes dark and half-lidded with arousal, face flushed and sweaty, his lips wet and pouting pink from their kisses, and his dark hair curling over his forehead. Sid’s chest is heaving and flushed all the way down his navel, his cock bouncing and leaking against his abs deliciously. He’s careful riding Nate at first, but he starts speeding up after a bit, getting into it, taking exactly what he wants from Nate. There’s really no bone in Nate’s body that can resist that sight, so he reaches down and grips Sid’s drooling cock, starts stroking him off again in time with Sid’s rhythm. Sid reacts beautifully, punching out guttural groans and stuttering in his pace. He kisses Nate desperately, open-mouthed and sloppy, the both of them breathing heavily against each other, until Nate’s lips are tingling and he feels like a live wire, hypersensitive and electric with how turned on he is. Sid starts tugging on Nate’s hair, and Nate never wants to leave this bed ever again.  
  
“Nate,” Sid husks out, “Nate, I want—“

“Yes, anything,” Nate replies mindlessly, panting against Sid’s neck, busy sucking kisses into his skin. Sid grinds down in a particularly filthy thrust that makes Nate twitch inside him and _oh_ , it’s perfect, Nate can’t help biting down on Sid’s shoulder in an attempt to just hold on a little longer for Sid. Sid’s breath hitches and he tightens his hand in Nate’s hair almost painfully, and Nate thinks, _good to know_ , and does it again.

“Nate,” Sid finally manages, “fuck me, come on,” and Nate obeys Sid like he’s never done anything else. He grips Sid’s hips, flips them around on the mattress, Sid’s thighs split wide around his hips. Sid’s breath hitches at the adjusted angle, staring up at Nate, eyebrows furrowed and mouth dropped open in pleasure. Nate hitches up Sid’s thigh and grinds in deep, carves out a space in Sid’s body for himself. He means to keep it slow and filthy, he swears he does, but then Sid is moaning, the sound rumbling through Nate’s own chest, and his hips rut fast and rough into Sid’s ass almost involuntarily. “Oh, _fuck_ ,” Sid groans, replacing Nate’s hand around his dick. He’s visibly close, just trying to get there while Nate’s dicking him deep, and Nate wants it too, desperate with it. It’s like every little reaction of Sid’s just winds Nate’s arousal higher and higher, until Nate hands are wrapped around Sid’s thighs tight enough to bruise and Sid is gasping with every grind of Nate’s hips against Sid’s ass. He won’t be able to hold on much longer, is barely keeping from coming as it is.

“I’m so— _Sid_ , you feel so good—,” Nate begs nonsensically, “please—” and he’s barely gotten it out when Sid tenses up and spurts all over his stomach and palm. It runs out messily between his fingers, and Nate restrains himself shakily and slows down. Sid cups Nate’s face in his hands, and Nate can’t even care about the jizz smearing against his jaw when Sid kisses him so sweetly. He clutches at Sid’s hip, cranes his neck a little and licks his way into Sid’s open mouth. It’s almost unbearably intimate like this: Nate can’t really move, buried inside Sid to the hilt, kissing him deep and wet, their bodies weaved so tight like they’d crawl inside each other if they could. Nate turns his face, breaking the kiss, licks across Sid’s filthy palm; the taste of Sid’s come hitting his tongue—

“Mess me up, Nate,” Sid whispers, and it sounds like the sweetest supplication Nate’s ever heard; melts in his ears like honey. Nate opens his eyes and Sid is right there: sharing his breath, eyes deep enough to drown in—

Nate comes on a shocked grunt, unloading the first spurt inside Sid’s hole and then pulling out to drip the rest all over Sid’s ass. Sid’s breath hitches as he pulls out, thighs clenching reflexively around Nate’s hips before letting him untangle them. He kisses him through it until Nate slumps against him, barely holding himself up on one elbow.

Nate floats out of his post-orgasmic haze slowly. He can’t help smiling down lazily at Sid, unable to stop the sheer happiness bubbling up in him. “You,” Nate murmurs against Sid’s mouth, bumping their noses together carefully, “look amazing.”

It’s true: Sid looks so relaxed and happy, his eyes crinkling in that way that Nate loves. Sid laughs, low and open and easy like he’d never be elsewhere if he could. “Messy though,” he says, attempting to waggle an eyebrow like a dork.

“What can I say, I do what I’m told, I’m a good boy like that,” Nate can’t help ribbing back, and Sid laughs, delighted. “Give me a minute, I’ll clean you up.” Nate drops a casual smooch on Sid’s shoulder and eases up, going to the bathroom to get them something to wipe down with.

* * *

After cleaning up and indulging in some post-coital cuddling and napping, they end up wandering downstairs to scrounge up something for dinner. It’s slim pickings, since they haven’t left the house since Nate’s arrived, but Sid, the culinary mastermind, whips them up something to eat. Nate’s stolen a pair of Sid's shorts, while Sid’s put on a shirt and an old pair of Roots sweats to cook. They end up eating companionably next to each other at the kitchen island, Nate’s bare foot wrapped around Sid’s ankle.

“Okay, there’s one thing I still don’t understand,” Nate admits between bites of his pasta. He turns a little and points his fork at Sid accusingly. “What was up with the club in Denver? You hate clubs.”

“I don’t hate clubs,” Sid protests, face scrunching into a frown like a man who doesn’t want to admit that he absolutely hates clubs. Nate lets him know what he thinks about that by using Tyson’s Disbelieving Eyebrow Raise, to which Sid responds by sighing in defeat.  
“It was dumb,” he admits, spearing up another penne on his fork, “I think I needed to convince myself that I wasn’t too old to do things you like.”

Nate frowns. Sid magnanimously waits for him to finish chewing and swallowing. “How does that translate to going to a weird hipster club in Denver?”

“Because,” Sid explains, as though it makes perfect sense, “you’re in your early twenties, and clubbing is, like, something you probably like to do with other guys your age. I don’t want to be too old for that! Flower said—“

“Sid,” Nate interrupts, amused, “Flower is married with three kids, I’m not sure he knows what twenty year olds like to do.”

“I— look, I remember what it’s like,” Sid grumbles, stabbing his food and not looking at Nate, “being _young_ and— famous, and having your pick of the night. And going to a club didn’t make me _that_ miserable.”

“Sid,” Nate says slowly, maybe starting to realize that Sid is kind of dumb sometimes, and also probably as much of a weird and intense freak about Nate as Nate is about him. He abandons his pasta, slides off the stool and swivels Sid’s stool so he can stand between Sid’s thighs. When Sid looks up and puts the fork down, Nate cradles his face between his palms, maintaining eye contact so Sid knows that this is important. “I like having dinner with you.”

“Yeah, but we can do more than one thing, I mean.” Sid seems a little indignant, but Nate has a point to make, here.

“I like training with you.”

“But that’s for hockey, and totally unfair, because half of that is being pissy competitive assholes.”

“I like hanging out with you.”

“That not even— an activity, that’s—“

“I like being your date to weddings, and I like coming over and having you cook us dinner, and I like teaching your hockey school with you, and I like golfing with you.”

“I, sure—“

“Sid,” Nate says slowly, “what do all those things have in common?”

“Um.” Sid blinks. “We do them in the summer?”

“I like doing things with you. Because you’re there and we’re doing them together, because you being there is what makes it good. I don’t give a shit about hipster clubs in Denver. Or any club anywhere. I just want to do things with you, because you or I want to do those things together. Because that’s what makes it good. Okay?”

“Okay,” Sid says softly, finally seeing the truth in Nate’s eyes, and smiles genuinely, beautifully. He leans in to press his lips to Nate’s, letting him taste the shape of Sid’s smile, all for Nate. “So, hey, speaking of things we want to do together,” Sid murmurs against his lips, settling his hands on Nate’s hips, grip sure and steady.

Nate grins slowly, and he can’t help opening his eyes and letting himself slowly sink into the warm amber of Sid’s eyes.

“Really smooth, Sidney.”

“Let’s go upstairs and fuck in a bed. Is that better?”

“Bossier.”

“Sure,” Sid agrees, a smile sparking up his eyes. He slowly stands up from the stool, dinner already forgotten in light of more interesting prospects. He starts nudging Nate backwards in the direction of the stairs using the hands still firmly resting on Nate’s hips. “But it’s working for you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Nate says, loosely draping his arms around Sid’s neck. When Sid nudges his thigh he takes a corresponding step backwards. He’s more than comfortable letting himself be led towards the bedroom if Sid’s the one doing the leading. They’re already in each other’s heads; being in sync has never been more pleasing. “You know what, it really is.”

**Author's Note:**

> A surprisingly large amount of this fic has some basis in reality. Nate did start seeing a sports therapist in the 17/18 season, and while there’s no evidence that he has a key to Sid’s house irl, they are next-door neighbours, and Sid does apparently cook for Nate pretty much daily in the summer. Sid really did have a running joke that he was moving right before construction finished on Nate’s house during that season, and the note on the key is lifted verbatim from an interview where he was quoted on it. Sid also apparently has at some point, on at least one of his properties, had an outdoor rink made of fake ice. The game schedule and the outcomes are accurate too, with the exception of the game Pittsburgh played before coming to Colorado. That would logistically have had to happen in the afternoon for the club scene to happen, and irl that was an evening game. The penalty Nate took in the first game of their regular season matchup was also a tripping penalty, not hooking, I just can’t resist a good pun. Tyson Barrie’s irl thirst for Gabe Landeskog and the general horniness of the avs roster is well-documented. Lil’ Croz and Nate Dogg are real actual nicknames that Nathan MacKinnon uses, because he’s just Like That.


End file.
